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L E T T E I
L E T^ljII/
FROM ::;
SPAIN
By '-
KAREL 6APEK
Traaslated by PAUL SELVER
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK
1932
PRINTED IK GREAT BRITAIN
PAGE
NORD AND SUD EXPRESS ...... 7
D. R., BELGIQUE, FRANCE 13
CASTILLA LA VIEJA 17
PUERTA DEL SOL 21
TOLEDO 27
POSADA DE LA SANGRE 34
VELAZQUEZ o LA GRANDEZA 38
EL GRECO o LA DEVOCION 42
GOYA o EL REVERSO 46
Y LOS OTROS . 51
ANDALUCtA 5*>
CALLES SEVILLANAS 59
REJAS y PATIOS 65
GIRALDA 72
ALCAZAR 79
JARDINES 85
MANTILLAS 90
TRIANA 9 8
CORRIDA 103
LIDIA ORDINARIA 117
PAGE
FLAMENCOS 133
BODEGA 148
CARABELA 152
PALMAS Y NARANJOS 157
TlBIDABO 164
SARDANA 169
PELOTA ........ 173
MONTSERRAT l8o
VUELTA l86
Nord and Sud Express
IN recent times what are known as international
expresses have become extremely important
accessories to travel, partly on practical grounds,
which are of minor interest to us, and partly for
poetical reasons. Time after time in modern
poetry the Transcontinental Express dashes past
you, and a mysterious porter calls out the names
of stations : Paris, Moscow, Honolulu, Cairo ;
the Sleeping Cars dynamically scan the rhythm
of Speed, and the Pullman, as it whirls by,
suggests all the magic of distant places, for you
must know that nothing less than first-class travel
accommodation will satisfy the fine frenzy of the
7
poet. My poetical friends, allow me to tell you
the plain truth about Pullmans and Sleeping
Cars : if you must know, they look infinitely more
enticing from outside, when they flash past some
sleepy little station, than from within. It is true
that they make up for this by their tremendous
speed, tmt it is no less true that all the same you
are boxed up in them for fourteen or even twenty-
three blessed hours at a stretch, and as a rule
that's enough to^ bore you -stiff. A local train
from Prague to Repy jogs along at a less impres-
sive speed, but at least you know that in half an
hour you'll be able to get out and pursue some
fresh adventure. A man in a Pullman car doesn't
dash along at sixty miles an hour ; he just sits
and yawns ; if the face on the right annoys him,
he goes and sits down on the other side. The
only redeeming feature of it is that he has a com-
fortable seat. Sometimes he gazes listlessly out
8
NORD AND SUD EXPRESS
of the Window ; a small station whisks past, and
he can't read the name of it ; a township flits by
and he can't get put there ; he'll never stroll
along that road bordered with plane-trees, he'll
never dawdle on that bridge and spit in the
river in fact he won't even find out what the
river is called. Confound it all, thinks -the
man in the Pullman, where - are we? What,
only Bordeaux ? Good Lord, this is a slow
business !
Wherefore, if you want to have a trip with at
least something exotic about it, get into a local
train which puffs its way along from one wayside
station, to another. Press your nose against the
window-pane, so as not to miss anything : here
a soldier with a blue uniform gets in, hpre a child
waves its hand at you ; a French peasant in a
black cowl lets you have a swill at his wine, a
young mother gives her baby a breast as pale as
moonlight, the country yokels hold forth noisily
and smoke their shag, a snuff-stained priest says
his breviary ; the land unwinds, station after
station, like the beads on a rosary. And then
evening comes, when the jaded passengers doze
like emigrants under the flickering lights. At
that moment the lustrous International Express
hurtles past on the other track with its load of
weary boredom, with its Sleeping Cars and
Dining Cars.
What's that, only Dax ? Heavens above, what
a tiresome journey !
9
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
Not long ago I read a eulogy of the Suit-case ;
of course, not the common or garden suit-case,
but the International Suit-case, plastered over
with hotel labels from Constantinople and Lisbon,
Tetuan and Riga, St. Moritz and Sofia ; the suit-
case which is the pride of its owner, whose travels
it records. I will reveal a dreadful secret to you :
those labels are sold in travel agencies. For a
moderate fee your suit-case will be labelled Cairo,
Flushing, Bucharest, Palermo, Athens and Ostend.
With this revelation, I hope, I have inflicted a
mortal wound in the International Suit-case.
It is possible that another man in my place,
travelling all those thousands of miles, would meet
with something different in the way of adven-
tures ; perhaps he could come across the Inter-
national Venus or the Madonna of the Sleeping
Cars. Nothing of that sort happened to me ;
there was only a collision, but I really couldn't
help that. In some wayside station our express
dashed into a goods train ; the contest was an
10
NORD AND SUD EXPRESS
unequal one and the result of it was much the
same as if Mr. Chesterton had sat on somebody's
top-hat. The goods train fared very badly, while
on our side there were only five wounded ; it was
a thorough victory. When, in such a contin-
gency, a passenger has wriggled out from under-
neath a suit-case which has fallen on his head, he
first of alt rushes off to see what has happened ;
not until he has satisfied his curiosity does he
begin to fumble about to discover whether he has
any bones broken. When he has made sure that,
roughly speaking, he is sound in wind and limb,
he derives a certain amount of technical pleasure
in observing how the two engines have got
rammed together and what a thorough mess we.
have made of the goods train ; well, it oughtn't
to have interfered with us. Only the injured
passengers are pale and rather disgruntled, as if
a personal and unjust humiliation has been
inflicted upon them. Then the authorities poke
their noses into it and we go off to drink to our
victory in the remnants of the dining-car. For
the rest of the journey they leave us a free passage,
we have evidently put the fear of God into them.
Another and a more complicated adventure is
how to get into the upper berth in a sleeping-car,
especially when someone is already asleep in the
lower one. It is somewhat disconcerting to
trample on the head and abdomen of a person
whose nationality and character are alike unknown
to you. There are various wearisome methods of
ii
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
getting on top : by such physical jerks as the up-
ward stretch, with or without a preliminary jump-,
by vaulting, by straddling, by fair means or foul.
Once you are up there, make sure not to get
thirsty or anything of that sort which would
involve climbing down ; surrender yourself into
the hands of God, and try to sleep like a corpse
in a coffin, while unknown and strange regions
are whizzing past outside, and at home poets are
writing verses about International Expresses.
00
D. R. 9 Belgique, France
IF I were wealthy enough, and if such things
were for sale in the open market, I should
certainly start making a collection of countries.
I have discovered that frontiers are by no means
to be despised, although I am not fond of customs
ci
c>
T* p*ROViNZ
Cr
officers, and passport inspections bore me. I
nevertheless notice with a delight which is always
fresh that when I cross the frontiers from one
country to another, I penetrate into a new world,
with different houses and a different language,
different policemen, a different colour of the soil
and different scenery. A blue railway-guard is.
replaced by a green one who, in his turn, a few
hours later, will make way for a brown one.
Really, it's just like the Arabian Nights. Czech
apple-trees are followed by the fir-trees of Bran-
X 3
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
denburg on white stretches of sand, a windmill
waves its arms as if it were running away, the
country-side is neatly levelled out and produces
chiefly advertisements of cigarettes and margarine.
Then rocks covered with ivy, hills which have
been hollowed out by mining operations^ deep
green river-basins, the forges and foundries of
steel- works, the iron ribs of pithead towers, slag-
heaps which look like recently extinguished vol-
CMA'RLE ROi
canoes, a medley of rustic scenery and heavy
industry, a concerto in which the shawm and the
carillon accompany the factory siren": Verhaeren
in his entirety, Les heures claires as well as Les
miles tentaculaires. The whole of Flanders as the
old poet portrayed it : the country which has not
found enough room for its treasures and keeps
them all in one pocket ; winsome Belgium ; a
mother with her baby in her arms, a young soldier
watering a horse, an inn at the bottom of a hill,
the chimney-stacks and formidable towers of
industry, a Gothic church and an iron-foundry,
14
D. R t , BELGIQUE^ FRANCE
some cows among the mine-shafts all these
things neatly arranged like objects in an old-
fashioned shop heaven alone knows how room
has been found for them.
Ah, but now there is more elbow-room. This
is France, the country of alders and poplars,
poplars and plane-trees, plane-trees and vine-
yards. Silvery green, yes, a green silveriness is
the colour of it ; pink bricks and blue slates ; a
OKlEANAfS
slight veil of mist, more light than colour, Corot.
Not a mortal soul in the fields ; perhaps they are
pressing the grape-crops, the gladsome wine of
Touraine, the gladsome wine of Anjou ; Balzac's
goodly wine and the wine of Monsieur le Comte
de la Fere. Garfon, une demi-bouteille and here's
to you, turrets of the valley of the Loire ! Black-
haired women dressed in black. What, only Bor-
deaux ? Resinous fragrances are wafted on the
night air; here are the Landes, the region of
pine-trees. Then a different fragrance, keen and
exhilarating : the sea.
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
Hendaye, all change ! An official with the face
of a young Caligula in a shiny three-cornered hat
scrawls a magic sign on the luggage, and with a
lordly gesture ushers us on to the platform. Well,
so far, so good : I am in Spain.
Corner ero, una media dejerez. So far, so good.
A devilish fine Spanish girl, her fingers dyed with
henna. Now then, keep away from there. All
the same, I wish I could take that official, as a
stuffed specimen, home with me !
Castilla la Vieja
YES, I have been in Spain ; I can swear most
solemnly to that, and I have a number of
witnesses to prove it, e.g. the hotel-labels on my
suit-case. And yet as far as I am concerned, the
land of Spain is shrouded with an impenetrable
mystery, for the sound reason that I entered it
and left it again at dead of night ; it was just as
if we had been taken blindfold across the River
Acheron or through the Mountains of Dreams.
I tried to distinguish something in the darkness
outside ; I saw something that looked like a
cluster of black patches on the bare hill-sides ;
perhaps they were rocks or trees, but they might
also have been large animals. The mountains
were severe and strange of aspect ; I decided that
I could get up early to have a look at them at day-
break, I did get up early ; according to the map
and the time-table we ought to have been some-
where in the mountains, but all I saw below the
red streak of daybreak was a brown, bare and
frowning expanse ; it looked like the sea or a
mirage. I thought I must be feverish, for I had
never seen a plain like that before ; so I went to
sleep again, and when I woke up once more and
looked out of the window, I discovered that I was
17 B
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
not feverish, but that I was in a different land
and that land was Africa.
I do not know how to put It ; there Is a green
tint here, but it is different from ours ; It Is dim
and drab. There Is a brown tint, but It is dif-
ferent from ours ; it Is not the brown tint of
ploughed earth, but the brown tint of stony land
and powdered lignite. There are red rocks here,
but there Is something stagy about their redness.
CASTIILA LA VIEJA
And there are mountains too, which are fashioned,
not of rock, but of deep clay and boulders.
These boulders do not sprout out of the soil ;
they look as if they had been showered down on
to it. The mountains are called Sierra de Guad-
arama ; God, who created them, must be very
mighty, or how else could He have made so many
stones ? Among the boulders grow dark oaks and
besides them scarcely anything but wild thyme
and thorns. It Is bare and large, as parched as
a desert, as mysterious as Sinai ; I do not quite
18
CASTILLA LA VIEJA
know how to express my meaning, but it is another
continent, it Is not Europe. It is sterner and
fiercer than Europe ; It is older than Europe. It
is not a mournful wilderness ; it is solemn and
strange, rough and majestic. People dressed in
black, black goats, black pigs against a background
of torrid russet. A harsh existence, scorched to
blackness among the heated stones.
Here, and there the bare boulders are streams,
the bare stones form a plain and the bare stone
walls a Castillian pueblo. An angular tower and
a wall around ; It is more of a stronghold than
a village. It Is welded together with the stony
soil, just as old castles are welded together with
the rock on which they stand. The huts are
huddled one against the other, as if they were
awaiting an attack. This then Is a Spanish
village. The human dwellings blend with the
stony earth.
And in the brown, stony slope there is a miraoi-
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
lous sight : dark green gar dens , avenues of dark
cypresses ? a dense and gloomy park ; a huge,
stark and lordly cube with four bristling turrets ;
a monumental solitude, a hermitage with a thou-
sand haughty windows : El Escorial. The cloister
of the Spanish kings. A castle of sorrow and
pride above the parched country-side, where meek
asses graze.
Puerto, del Sol
OH yes, I know that here I ought to discuss
many other matters, such as the history of
Madrid, the view on the Manzanares, the gardens
in Buen Retiro, the royal palace with the guards-
men in red and the shouting bevy of pretty chil-
dren in the courtyard, a whole lot of churches and
museums and the other main sights. If it interests
you, please read it up elsewhere ; all I offer you is
Puerta del Sol, and just as a special favour to you, I
will add Calle de Alcala and Calle Mayor, together
with the tepid evenings and all the people of Madrid*
There are sacred places in the world ; they are
the most beautiful streets in the world, the beauty
of which is as irrational and mysterious as a myth,
There is the Cannebiere in Marseilles ; there is
the Rambla in Barcelona ; there is the Alcala in
Madrid. If you were to detach them from their
surroundings, boiling them down and depriving
them of their life and all their small local odours,
and then put them elsewhere, you would not
notice anything remarkable about them ; why,
you would say, this is quite a nice wide street, but
what else is there ? What else, O ye of little
faith ? Don't you see that this square is sacred,
nay more, that the world-renowned Puerta del
LETTERS PROM SPAIN
Sol, the Gate of the Sun, is the centre of the world
and the navel of Madrid ? Don't you see how
this priest, more dignified and stately than any
other priest in the world, is wending his way along,
with his cloak tucked up beneath his arm like a
soldier with a rolled great-coat. And here, ^this
Spanish hidalgo, disguised as a gendarme in a
shiny hat dented at the back ; another caballero,
probably a marquis or something of that sort,
with an aquiline nose and the voice of a crusader
leading his warriors, is shouting El Soool or the
name of some other newspaper ; and here again
is a conquistador, leaning on a broom, and with
sculptural gestures performing an allegory of some
kind, perhaps the Cleansing of the City. But
22
PUERTA DEL SOL
here are some pleasant people : lean and sun-
burnt peasants from the Sierras, bringing veget-
ables and melons with them on the backs of
donkeys ; enough red, blue and green uniforms
to mount a dozen decorative ballets ; limpiabotas
with their small stands
Wait a bit : this is a chapter all to itself and
headed : boot-cleaning. The cleaning of boots
is a national Spanish trade ; or in exacter terms,
the cleaning of boots is a national Spanish dance
or ceremony. In other parts of the world, Naples,
for instance, a bootblack will hurl himself upon
your footwear furiously, and will start brushing
it as if he were conducting the experiment in
physics, by which heat or electricity is produced
as the result of friction. Spanish boot-cleaning
is a dance, which, like the Siamese dances, is per-
formed only with the hands. The dancer kneels
down before you as a sign that this performance
is being held in honour of Your Lordship ; with
an elegant movement he turns up your trousers,
with a graceful pass he smears the respective foot-
as
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
wear with a fragrant salve or something of that
sort, whereupon he indulges in a frenzied set of
dancing movements ; he flings the brush up-
wards, seizes it again, slaps it across from one
hand to the other, allowing it to touch your boots
in a respectful and flattering manner. The mean-
ing of this dance is clear : it expresses respect ;
you are a magnificent grandee, receiving the cere-
monious homage of a knightly page. Accord-
ingly, a magnificent and agreeable warmth, mount-
ing from the feet, spreads inside you ; which is
certainly worth half a peseta.
Oiga, camerero, una capita de Fundador. You
know, caballeroS) this has quite taken my fancy :
all this crowd, this noise, which is not an uproar,
the gay courtesy, the charm ; all of us are cavaliers,
tramp and custodian of the law, I and the crossing-
sweeper, we are all of noble birth, wherefore long
live southern equality ! Madrilenas, you hand-
some long-nosed women in black mantillas with
24
PUERTA DEL SOL
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
your dark optics, with what dignity do you bear
yourselves in your half-concealment ; senoritas
with dark-eyed mamas, mamas and their babies
with small round pates, like dolls ; fathers who are
not ashamed of their love for their children, old
women with rosaries, good-humoured fellows
with the faces of brigands, beggars, gentlemen
with gold teeth, pedlars, caballeros one and all ;
a bright and bustling crowd which chats and
strolls in a good-tempered allegro.
But the evening comes, the air is steeped In
warmth and has a keen savour ; the whole of
Madrid, if It has legs at all, Is walking, thronging
and surging from Calle Mayor as far as Calle
de Alcala ; caballeros in uniforms, caballeros In
plain clothes, in sombreros and caps, girls of all
denominations, viz. madamiselas, doncellas and
muchachas, senoritas and mozas and chulas,
madamas and sefioras, duefias, duenazas and
dueiiisimas, hijas, chicas, chiquitas and chiquir-
riticas with dark eyes behind the dark mantilla,
with red lips, red finger-nails and dark side-
glances, all promenading, a festival of workaday,
a processional demonstration of amorous and
flirtatious charm, a pleasaunce of eyes, an avenue
of endless erotic enchantment.
Cannebiere, Rambla, Alcala : the most delight-
ful streets in the world ; streets which overflow
with life, like a goblet with wine.
Toledo
YOU have here a brown, warm plain, studded
with villages, donkeys, olives and dome-
shaped walls ; from this plain, without any warn-
ing, a great granite rock thrusts itself, and all the
objects on it are squeezed together, one on top
of the other ; and below in the chasm of brown
rocks flows the brown Tajo.
As regards Toledo itself, I really don't know
whether to begin with the ancient Romans or the
Moors or the Catholic Kings. But as Toledo is
a mediaeval town, I will begin with what a
mediaeval town undoubtedly begins with, viz.
the gates. For instance, Toledo has a gate known
as Bisagra nueva, rather in the style of Terezin,
with a Habsburg double eagle which is distinctly
above life-size ; it looks as if it led to our Terezin
or Josefov, but contrary to all expectation it
debouches into a quarter which is called Arrabal
and looks it, too. Whereupon you are in front
of another gate which is called the Gate of the
Sun, and looks as if you had been set down in
Bagdad, but instead of that the Moorish portal
leads into the streets of the most Catholic of
towns, where every third building is a church
with a bloodstained Jesus and an ecstatic retable
27
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
of Greco. Also you wander through winding
Arab by-streets , gaze through gratings into
Moorish courtyards which are called patios and
are Inlaid with Toledan majolica, you keep clear
of donkeys laden with wine or oil, you peep at
the beautiful harem-gratings of the windows and
altogether you trudge along as if in a dream. As
if in a dream. You might come to a standstill at
every seventh step ; here is a Visigoth pillar and
there a Mozareb wall ; here a miraculous Virgin
Mary, who finds a wife or a husband for all, and
there a Mudejar minaret and renaissance palace
like a fortress, and Gothic windows, and a fagade
encrusted with gold and gems in the estilo plater-
esco, and a mosque, and a street so narrow that
a donkey can only get through if he squeezes
his ears back ; glimpses of shady majolica court-
yards where fountains gurgle amid flower-pots ;
glimpses of serried streets between bare walls and
barred windows ; glimpses of the sky ; glimpses
of churches frantically decorated with everything
which can be carved, hewn, moulded, damas-
cened, hammered, painted, embroidered, tricked
28
TOLEDO ' ,
out with filigree, gilded and set with precious
stones. Thus you can stop at every step, as in
a museum ; or you can walk along as in a dream,
for all this, the products of a thousand years,
marked with the flaming script of Allah, the cross
of Christ, the gold of the Incas, the life of diverse
periods, gods, civilizations, and races, is, after all,
a fantastically uniform thing ; so many periods
and civilizations enter the hard clutch of the
Toledan rock. And then, in one of the narrowest
streets, from the barred window of a human cage
a bird's-eye view of Toledo is revealed to you :
one single surge of flat roofs beneath the blue
29
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
sky : an Arab town, glistening In the brown rocks ,
gardens on the roofs, and delightful, languorous
patios with an intimate and comely life of their
own.
But if I were to take you by the hand and show
you over everything that was revealed to me in
Toledo, I suppose I should first lose my way in
those winding poverty-stricken streets. Not that
I should regret that, for there too we should have
to keep clear of the donkeys, pattering over the
cobbles with their nimble hoofs, we should see
the open patios and the majolica staircases and
moreover we should encounter people. Perhaps
here I should find that Mudejar chapel, white and
chilly, with its fine horse-shoe arches ; a little
further on is a rock which falls sheer into the Tajo,
and opens out a magnificent and austere vista ;
and the synagogue del Transito, bestrewn with
fragile and curiously refined Moorish ornamenta-
tion. And churches : thus, the one with Greco's
" Burial of the Count Orgaz, 35 or the one with
that magnificent Moorish cloister, just like a
dream. And the hospitals with palatial court-
yards. There is one of them in front of the gate,
and in it there are poor nuns with huge wing-
shaped headgear and a crowd of orphans holding
hands, like a long snake, as they trudge along to
church singing " Antonino " or " Santo niiio " or
something of that sort ; and for their use there
is an old dispensary with beautifully enamelled
pots and flagons labelled : " Divinus Quercus ' 3
3
TOLEDO
or " Caerusa," " Sagapan " or " Spica Celtic/ 5
remedies that have stood the test of time.
Now concerning the cathedral, I am not sure
whether I was there or not ; for as just in front
of it I sampled the Toledan wine, wine from the
Vega plain, a drop of wine so liquid that it flows
down the throat all by itself, and a wine as thick
as a curative oil, I am not prepared to swear that
I did not dream about it or muddled it up some-
how. There was too much of it ; I know that
there were exquisite miniatures and fantastic
ciboria, gratings which reached to the skies,
carved retables with a thousand statues, jasper
balustrades, canonical chairs carved from above,
from below, from the middle and from the back,
pictures by Greco, organs rumbling in some place
unknown, prebendaries as stout and desiccated as
stockfish, chapels inlaid with marble, painted
chapels, black chapels, golden chapels, Turkish
3*
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
banners, canopies, angels, tapers and vestments,
impassioned Gothic and
impassioned Baroque,
plateresque altars and
a churriguesque Trans-
parency absurdly bulg-
ing beneath a dark,
lofty, vaulted dome, a
medley of senseless and
amazing things , of glow-
ing lights and awe-in-
spiring darkness well,
perhaps I only dreamt
about it ; perhaps it was
only a dreadful, con-
fused dream in the
wicker chair of the
church, perhaps it is
not even possible for
any religion to need all
these things.
So, caballero, go for
a stroll in the streets
of Toledo to clear your
head of this gluttonous
wallowing in works of
art. You, shapely win-
dows, small Gothic
arches, Gothic and
Moorish ajimez ; you,
hammered rejas, houses with battlements, patios
3 2
TOLEDO
with children and palm trees, tiny courtyards
inlaid with azulejos, streets of Moors, Jews and
Christians, where it is a joy to loiter in the
shadow, caravans of donkeys in you, I say,
and in many, many tiny details there is just as
much history as in any cathedral, the best museum
is the street of living people. I had almost said
that here you imagine yourself straying into
another age, but that is not true. The truth is
stranger ; there is no other age ; what was, is.
And if this caballero were begirded with a sword,
and that priest yonder were to expound the
scriptures of Allah, and that girl were the Jewess
of Toledo, it would not strike you as being a whit
more curious and remote than the walls of the
Toledan streets. If I were to enter another age
it would not be another age ; it would be only
a bewilderingly fine and high adventure. Like
Toledo. Like the Spanish land.
33
Posada de la Sangre
THE Tavern at the sign of the Blood. It
was here that Don Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra lived , drank, ran into debt and wrote
his " Exemplary Tales." In Seville there is
another inn, where he also drank and wrote, and
a prison where he served a sentence for debt ;
to-day, however, this prison is a tavern. On the
basis of my own investigations I can prove to all
and sundry that, while he drank Manzanilla and
crunched langostinos with it in Seville, he treated
himself to Toledan wine in Toledo and did justice
to the chorizo with paprika and the jamon Serrano
or black raw ham and other things which accom-
panied it, and which promote thirst, talent and
eloquence. Until this very day Toledan wine is
drunk from flagons and chorizo is munched in
the Posada de la Sangre, while in the yard the
caballeros unharness the donkeys and bandy jokes
with the girls, just as they used to do at the time
of Don Miguel. Which only shows the genius
of Cervantes is unfading.
But while we are in the tavern, oiga, viajero ;
you must eat and drink your way through distant
countries, to get to know them properly ; and tha
more distant the countries are, the more, under
34
POSADA DE LA SANGRE
God, must you eat and drink your fill. And you
will discover that all the nations of the world,
down to the Saxons and Brandenburgers, have
sought by sundry ways and means, as well as by
sundry spices and processes, to achieve paradise
on earth ; wherefore they set to work baking,
brazing and pickling the most diverse foods so
as to achieve temporal bliss. Every nation has
its own tongue, and indeed its own daintiness of
"tongue. Get to know its tongue ; eat Its foods
35
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
and drink Its wines. Attune yourself whole-
heartedly to the harmonies of its fish and cheeses,
Its oil and smoked meats and bread and fruit,
amid the orchestral accompaniment of its wines,
which are as numerous as musical instruments.
There are wines as penetrating as a Basque reed-
pipe, as harsh as vendas, as deep as guitars ; so
play your tunes to the wanderer, ye warm and
sonorous wines ! A la salud de listed, Don
Miguel 1 As you see, I am a foreigner ; I have
crossed three countries to get here, but perhaps
I could make friends with you all the same.
Good, pour me out some more. You know, you
Spaniards have a number of things In common
with us Czechs ; for example, you have the same
ch as we have, and our fine, hearty nr, and you
36
POSADA DE LA SANGRE
are fond of diminutives, just as we are ; a la
salud de Usted. You ought to pay a visit to our
country, Mr. Cervantes ; we would drink to your
health in beer with white froth, and we would
pile up your plate with other foods than these,
for each nation has its own tongue, but we can
make ourselves understood where sound and
fundamental matters are concerned, such as a
good tavern, realism, the arts and freedom of the
spirit. A la salud.
37
Velazquez a la Grandeza
IF you want Velazquez you must go to Madrid,
for one thing because most of his pictures are
there, and then too, that is just the place, with
its pomp in a sober setting, amid princely osten-
tation and plebeian hubbub, that city which is at
once ardent and cold, where he seems to fit in
almost as a matter of course. If I were to sum
up Madrid briefly, I should say that it is a city
of courtly show and fitful revolutions ; just notice
how the people here hold their heads : it is half
grandeza and half doggedness. If I have any
flair at all for cities and people, I should say that
in the atmosphere of Madrid there is something
like a gentle tension which causes a slight excite-
ment, while Seville blissfully takes its ease, and
Barcelona seethes in semi-concealment.
Thus, Diego Velazquez de Silva, knight of
Calatrava, royal marshal and court painter of that
pale, cold and strange Philip IV, belongs to the
Madrid of the Spanish Kings by a twofold right.
First and foremost he has grandeur ; he is so
supreme that he is beyond all lies. But this is
not the exuberant, golden grandeur of Tizian ;
there is in it a trenchant coldness, a delicate and
yet unrelenting sense of detail, an uncanny sure-
38
VELAZQUEZ O LA GRANDEZA
ness of eye and brain which rules the hand. I
imagine "that his king made him marshal, not to
reward him, but because he feared him : be-
cause the intent and penetrating eyes of Velazquez
made him uneasy : because he could not bear this
equality with the painter and he therefore raised
him to the rank of grandee. So then it was a
Spanish paladin who painted the pale king with
the weary eyelids and frozen eyes, or the pale
infantas with rouge on their faces, poor, tightly
laced puppets. Or the court dwarfs with the
dropsical heads, the palace jesters and fools,
39
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
, swaggering with grotesque dignity, a crippled and
imbecile plebeian monstrosity unwittingly traves-
tying the grandeur of the court. The king and
ex
his dwarf, the court and its jester : Velazquez
accentuated this antithesis too markedly and too
consistently for it not to have its peculiar meaning.
The royal marshal would scarcely paint the court
4
VELAZQUEZ O LA GRANDEZA
menials if he himself did not wish to. If there
were nothing more in it than this, then at least
there is one cruel and cold-blooded message :
this is the king and the world he lives in. Velaz-
quez was too superb a painter merely to fulfil
commissions ; and too great a man to paint only
what he saw. He saw too well not to allow his
eyes to serve as a medium of vision for the whole
of his clear and supreme intelligence.
41
El Greco o la Devocion
YOU must search for Domenica Theotocopuli,
known as El Greco, in Toledo ; not that he
fits In there more than anything else, but the
place is full of him and, besides, in Toledo nothing
surprises you ; not even El Greco. A Greek by
origin, a Venetian In colour, he was Gothic In
his art, and by a whim of history he cropped up
when Baroque was let loose. Imagine Gothic
verticalism which has encountered a blast from
a Baroque whirlwind ; the Gothic line warps,
and a surge of Baroque darts up and permeates
the perpendicular eruption of Gothic ; at times
it seems as if the pictures were cracking with the
tension of these two forces. There is such an
Impact that It distorts the faces, warps the bodies
and flings garments upon them In heavy tem-
pestuous folds ; clouds uncoil like bed-linen flut-
tering In a tempest, and through them penetrates
an abrupt and tragical light, enkindling colours
with an unnatural and eerie intensity. As If
judgment-day had come, when signs and tokens
are revealed In heaven and on earth.
And just as In Greco himself two types of form
merge into each other, so also you feel In his
pictures two conflicting elements which goad each
42
EL GRECO LA DEVOCION
other on to extreme lengths : a direct and pure
vision of God, such as hallowed art up to the
Gothic period, and a rampant mysticism by which
the human, all-too-human Catholic Baroque was
emotionally stimulated. The old Christ was not
the Son of Man but God Himself in. His glory.
Theotocopuli the Byzantine carried the old Christ
within him ; but in Baroque Europe he discovered
the humanized Christ who had been made flesh.
The old God held sway sublimely, relentlessly
and a little rigidly in his mandorla ; the Baroque
and Catholic God amid his angel choirs glided
to earth in order to clutch at the believer, and
43
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
draw him within the curving range of his glories .
Greco the Byzantine came from the basilicas of
holy silence into the churches with their loud
surges of organ music and frenzied processions ;
I should have imagined that this meant rather a
lot to him ; but amid the uproar he did not lose
the thread of his own prayers , and he himself
began to shout in a dire and unnatural voice.
In him there developed what might be called a
frenzy of belief; this mundane and material
tumult did not assuage him ; he had to shout it
down with a more shrill and vehement outcry.
How odd : this eastern Greek surmounted western
Baroque by raising it to an ecstatic pitch of
emotion and getting rid of its exuberant and
muscular human attributes. The older he grew,
the more did he dehumanize the figures, lengthen-
ing the bodies out of all proportion, emaciating
the faces with the gauntness of martyrdom, and
fixing the eyes with a wide-open stare upon a
pillar. Up, heavenward ! He removes reality
from colours ; his darkness hisses and his colours
are enkindled as if illuminated by lightning.
Hands which are too fragile and incorporeal are
uplifted in amazement and terror, the stormy
heavens are rent asunder and the shrill lament of
awe and belief reaches the ancient God.
Yes, this Greek was an overwhelming genius ;
some assert that he was mad. Every man whose
eyes become feverishly fixed upon his own visions
is a little mad ; or at least he lapses into man-
44
EL GRECO O LA DEVOCION
nerlsms because he takes from himself and from
nowhere else the material and form of his visions.
In Toledo foreigners are shown la Casa de Greco-;
I cannot believe that this charming little house
with the trim, tiled garden belonged to the .queer
Greek. It has too mundane a smile for that, and
it also looks too prosperous. We know that the
only heritage which Greco left to his son was two
hundred of his pictures. Evidently at that time
there was no very brisk demand for the retables
of the eccentric Cretan. It is only to-day that
the spectators crowd round these pictures in
devout admiration ; but they are people without
faith, who are in no way startled by the shrill
and despairing outcry of the Greek's piety
45
Goya o el Reverse
IN the Prado at Madrid there are dozens of
pictures and hundreds of drawings by him ;
and so for the sake of Goya, if for nothing else,
Madrid is a great place for a pilgrimage. Neither
before nor after him was there a painter who
pounced upon his age with so ample a clutch,
with such intense and ruthless verve, and por-
trayed it, seamy side and all ; Goya is not realism,
Goya is onslaught ; Goya is revolution ; Goya is
a pamphleteer multiplied by a Balzac.
His most exquisite work : designs for gobelins.
A rustic fair, children, paupers, an open-air dance,
an injured bricklayer, a brawl, girls with a jug,
a vintage, a snow-storm, games, a working-class
wedding ; sheer life, its joys and sorrows, playful
and evil scenes, a solemn and also a blissful
spectacle ; such teeming life, as lived by the
people, had never before surged forth in any cycle
of paintings. It produces the effect of a folk-
song, a frisky jota, a winsome seguidilla ; it is a
specimen of rococo, but now quite humanized ;
it is painted with a particular delicacy and relish
which is surprising in so fierce a painter as this.
Such is his attitude towards the people,
Portraits of the royal family : Carlos IV,
46
O EL REVERSO
bloated and listless, like a bumptious, dull-witted
jack-in-office ; Queen Maria Luisa, with rabid
and gimlety.eyes, an ill-favoured harridan and an
arrant virago, their family bored, brazen and
repulsive. Goya's portraits of kings are not far
short of insults, Velazquez did not flatter ;
Goya went as far as to laugh Their Highnesses
to scorn. It was ten years after the French
Revolution, and a painter, without turning a hair,
told the throne what he thought of it,
But a few years later there was another revolu-
tion : the Spanish nation flung itself tooth and
47
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
nail upon the French conquerors. Two astound-
ing pictures by Goya : a desperate attack by the
Spaniards on Murat's mamelukes, and the execu-
tion of the Spanish rebels. These are specimens
of reporting, which for sheer genius and emotional
eloquence, have not their equal in the whole
history of painting ; at the same time Goya, as
a mere incidental, achieved that modernity of
composition which was adopted by Manet sixty
years later.
Maja desnuda : the modern revelation of sexu-
ality. A barer and more carnal nudity than
any which had preceded it. The end of erotic
pretence. The end of allegorical nudity. It
is the only nude by Goya, but there is more
exposure in it than in tons of academic flesh.
Pictures from Goya's house : it was with this
appalling witches 5 sabbath that the artist decor-
ated his house. It consists almost entirely of
mere black and white paintings feverishly flung
on to the canvas ; it is like hell illuminated with
livid flashes of lightning. Sorceresses, cripples
and monstrosities : man in his dark wallowings
and his bestiality. You might say that Goya
turned man inside out, peering through his nostrils
and his yawning gullet, studying his misshapen
vileness in a distorting mirror. It is like a night-
mare, like a shriek of horror and protest. I can-
not imagine that this caused Goya any amuse-
ment : he more likely struggled frenziedly against
some of it. I had an uneasy feeling that the horns
GOYA O EL REVERSO
of the Catholic devil and the cowls of the in-
quisitors protrude from this hysterical inferno.
At that time the constitution had been abolished
in Spain and the Holy Officium restored ; from
the convulsions of the civil wars and with the help
of the fanaticized mob the dark and bloody
reaction of despotism had been installed. Goya's
chamber of horrors is a ferocious shout of disgust
and hatred. No revolutionary ever affronted the
world with so frantic and virulent a protest.
1 re ir e
Goya's sketches : the feuilletons of a tremen-
dous journalist. Scenes from life in Madrid,
weddings and customs of the lower classes, chulas
and beggars, the very essence of life, the very
essence of the people ; Los Toros, bull-fights in
their chivalrous aspect, their picturesque beauty,
their blood and cruelty. The Inquisition, a
fiendish church mummery, fierce and caustic
pages from a lampoon ; Desastres de la guerra,
a fearful indictment of war, a document for all
time, pity which is truculent and ferocious in its
49 D
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
passionate directness ; Caprichos, Goya's wild
outbursts of laughter and sobbing at the hapless,
ghastly and fantastic creature which arrogates an
immortal soul to itself.
Reader, let me tell you that the world has not
yet done justice to this great painter, this most
modern of painters ; it has not yet learnt the
lesson he teaches. This harsh and aggressive
outcry, this violent and thrilling quintessence of
mankind ; no academic dullness, no aesthetic
trifling ; when a man can " see life steadily and
see it whole,' 5 really see it, I mean, then he is the
doer of deeds, he is a fighter, an arbiter, a fire-
brand. There is a revolution in Madrid : Fran-
cisco Goya y Lucientes is erecting barricades in
the Prado.
Y los Otros
THERE Is nothing more I can marvel at ;
after Goya I cannot stand In amazement
before any of the masters, light or dark. RIbera
is one of those dark and stern painters ; I like
his gaunt old men and sinewy fellows to whom
he gives the names of saints and martyrs ; but
here is a holier master, half earthly and half
redeemed, black as a cowl and white as an ironed
surplice, and that Is Zurbaran ; his name Is broad
and sturdy like his painting. All his life he
painted friars ; they are lanky or haggard fellows,
but they are always wrought of tough fibre ; they
show what staunch discipline, what genuine,
austere manliness formed the underlying ideas of
monkhood. If you would see a glorification of
man in his bony, bristly aspect, in his uncouth,
unshaven condition, do not search for the por-
traits of army leaders or kings, but look at
the great monks of the worthy and pious
Zurbaran.
And If you want to see Murillo, It is better to
go to Seville ; you will discover that what makes
his work so attractive Is its amorous Sevillan
tenderness. His Holy Virgins In a soft, warm
light why, they are the lush girls of Seville,
S 1
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
proud and winsome damsels : and Don Esteban,
good man that he was, glorified the heavens by
discovering heaven in Andalusia. He also painted
pretty, curly-haired boys from Triana or one of
the suburbs ; to-day these pictures of boys are
scattered in museums all over the world, but those
w
ZURBARANo o^ grades
boys themselves are In Spain to this very day and
they roam about in all paseos and plazas making
a terrific, hearty din ; and when they spy a
foreigner looking for the children of Murlllo,
they rush round him uttering a war-cry, and
extort pesetas and perros from him in the un-
abashed and traditional mendicant manner of
southern children.
52
Y LOS OTROS
53
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
And now, when I take stock of Spanish art as
a whole ; when I recall the wax Christs and poly-
chrome statues with all the appurtenances of the
tortured and flayed body ; the tombs which make
you almost smell the actual odour of decay ; the
misshapen and relentless portraits heavens above,
what a peepshow ! Spanish art has almost made
a special point of displaying man as he is, with
terrible emphasis and almost in a declamatory
manner : Behold, this Is Don Quixote I Behold,
this is a king ! Behold, this Is a cripple ! Lo,
such Is man ! Perhaps this Is the Catholic denial
of our sinful and mortal bodily husk ; perhaps
it Is
Wait a moment, I must now add something
about the Moors. You cannot conceive what
artists they were ; their upholstery, their tints,
the architectural filigree and arched doorways,
what magic and brilliance, what delicacy, what
feverish creativeness, what proficiency In the
plastic arts ! But the Koran forbade them to
portray man ; they were not allowed to imitate
man or create idols In his Image. It was the
Christian re-conquest of Spain which, together
with the cross, brought the Image of man. It
is perhaps since then, perhaps because the curse
of the Koran was broken, that the image of man
has occupied Spanish art so Intensely and some-
times even preposterously. Up to the nineteenth
century, Spain, vastly picturesque though It is,
has no landscape painting ; only Images of man,
54
y LOS OTROS
of man on a wooden cross , of man In the height
of his power, of man the cripple, of man dead and
in decay . . . until the apocalyptic democracy
of Francisco de Goya y Lucientes,
55
Andalucta
I MUST frankly admit that when I woke up
in the train and looked through the window,
I hadn't the faintest idea where I was ; alongside
the railway-line I saw something that looked like
a quickset hedge, behind it brown, flat fields, and
from them protruded, here and there, sparse and
jaded-looking trees. I had a strong and comfort-
able impression that I was travelling somewhere
between Bratislava and Nove Zamky, and I began
to give myself a wash and brush up, lustily whist-
ling " Kysiica, Kysiica " and other songs appro-
priate to the occasion. When, however, I had
5 6
ANDALUCtA
exhausted my supply of Czech songs I perceived
that what I had taken for a quickset hedge was
a dense aftergrowth of opuntia, six feet high,
plump aloes and a sort of stunted palm-tree,
probably chamaerops, and the jaded trees were,
I found, date-palms, while the brown tilled plain
was apparently Andalusia.
So you see how It is ; if you were travelling
across the tilled pampas, the Australian maize-
fields, the wheat-laden expanses of Canada, or
heavens knows where else, it would be exactly like
the country near Kolin or Bfeclav. Nature is
Infinitely various, and as regards man, he differs
in hair, language and a thousand sundry ways
of life ; but the farmer's work is the same every-
where, and arranges the face of the earth in the
same straight and regular furrows. The houses
are different, and so are the churches ; why, even
57
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
the telegraph poles are different In each country,
but the tilled field is the same everywhere,
whether in the neighbourhood of Pardubice or
of Seville. There is something great and also a
trifle monotonous about this.
But I must add that the farmer of Andalusia
has not the same broad and clumsy gait as ours ;
the Andalusian farmer rides on a donkey, which
makes him look excessively Biblical and droll.
Calles Sevillanas
I WAGER a bottle of aljarafe, or anything you
like, that every guide, every journalist, and
even every young lady tourist, will refer to
" smiling " Seville. Certain stock phrases and
epithets possess the ghastly and irritating quality
of being right. You can knock me down or call
me a purveyor of tushery or an arrant babbler
for saying so, but " smiling " Seville really is
smiling Seville. Nothing can be done about it ;
in fact, there is no other way of describing the
place. It is just " smiling " Seville ; in every
corner of its eyes and mouth there is a flutter of
merriment and tenderness.
And perhaps it is only that a street, however
narrow, glistens as if it were freshly whitewashed
every Saturday. And that from every window,
from every lattice in it are thrust garlands, pel-
argonia and fuchsias, small palms and all kinds
of greenery, blossoming and leafy. Here the
awnings have still remained from the summer,
stretched from roof to roof, and intersected by
the sky, as by a blue knife ; and when you stroll
along, you seem to be, not in the street, but in
the flower-laden passage of a house where you are
paying a visit ; at this corner somebody may
59
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
perhaps shake you by the hand and say : " We
are pleased to see you " or " i Que tal ? " or
something cheerful of that sort. And everything
here is as clean as a new pin ; there is a smell^of
garlands and frying oil ; every door with its lattice
leads to a trim heavenly garden which is called
a patio, and here again is a church with a majolica
dome and a portal as ornate as if a great festival
were on, and above all this the gleaming minaret
of the Giralda is uplifted. And this narrow,
crooked lane is called Sierpes because it twists
like a snake ; here the life of Seville flows along
densely and slowly : casinos and taverns, shops
full of lace and flowered silk, caballeros in light
Andalusian sombreros, tiny streets where vehicles
cannot be driven, because of the crowds of people
drinking wine, chatting, haggling, laughing and
generally idling there in various ways. Then
there is an old cathedral embedded in the old
quarter among the houses and patios, so that you
can only see bits of it wherever you are, as if it
were too big to be viewed as a whole by mortal
eye. And then another small faience church,
miniature palaces with bright and graceful front-
ages, arcades and balconies and embossed lattices,
a notched wall, from behind which palms and
broad-leaved musas lean over ; always something
attractive, a snug corner where you feel at ease
and which you never want to forget. Just recall
that wooden cross on the little square, as white
and restful as a nun's cell '; those delightful, quiet
60
CALLES SEVILLANAS
61
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
quarters of the city which contain the narrowest
streets and the most charming nooks in the
world
Yes, it was there, twilight had fallen, and the
children in the street were dancing the sevillana
to the strains of an angelic barrel-organ ; some-
where thereabouts is Murillo's house ye gods,
if I lived there, everything I wrote would be
tender and cheerful ; and there too, is the most
beautiful spot in the world ; it is called Plaza de
Dona Elvira or Plaza de Santa Cruz no, these
are two spots, and now I do not know which is
the more beautiful, nor am I ashamed yet that I
was moved to tears by their beauty and my weari-
ness. Yellow and red frontages and a neat green
garden in the middle : a garden containing speci-
mens of faience, box-trees, children and oleander,
an embossed crucifix and the evening^ peal of
bells ; and I, unworthy mortal in the midst of it
all, murmuring to myself in dazed accents : Good
Lord, why, this is like a dream or a fairy tale !
And then there is nothing more to be said, and
all that you can do is to surrender yourself to the
dazzling loveliness. Of course, you too ought to
be young and handsome ; you ought to have a
magnificent voice and be madly in love with a
beautiful maiden in a mantilla, and that will do.
Beauty is sufficient unto itself. But there are
various kinds of beauty ; among them the Sevillan
comeliness is particularly voluptuous and win-
some, cosy and affectionate ; it has feminine
62
CALLES SEVILLANAS
lushness with a crucifix on its bosom, it is fragrant
with myrtle and tobacco, and takes its ease in
seemly and sensual comfort * You seem to be,
not in streets and squares, but in the passages and
patios of a house where contented people dwell ;
you walk along almost on tip-toe, but nobody
asks you : what are you doing here, caballero
indiscreto ?
(There is also a large, brown, diapered Baroque
palace ; at first I thought it was a royal castle,
63
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
but It turned out to be a government tobacco
factory, the very one in which Carmen rolled
cigarettes. A large number of these Carmens are
still employed there, wearing an oleander blossom
behind their ears and living at Triana, while Don
Jose has become a gendarme in a three-cornered
hat ; and Spanish cigarettes are still appallingly
strong and black, no doubt through the influence
of those dark girls from Triana.)
64
Rejas y Patios
JUST as the streets of Seville look like passages
and courtyards, the windows of the apartments
look like bird-cages hanging on the walls. You
must know that they are all provided with a lattice
and they project beyond the houses : these
lattices are called rejas, and sometimes they are
such beautiful specimens of metal- work in spirals,
palmetas and wands, with all kinds of twisted and
criss-cross patterns, that the proper thing to do
would certainly be to sing a serenade beneath
them about sus ojitos negros or mi triste corazon
(m-brum brum, m-brum- brum, with guitar accom-
paniment). Oiga, nina :
Para cantarte mis penas
liago hablar a mi guitarra
si no entiedes lo que dice-e
no digas que tienes alma (m-brum)
For you have no idea how it adds to the attrac-
tiveness of a nina like that, when she is behind
a lattice like a rare bird.
Altogether it would appear that embossed
lattices form a speciality of national Spanish art ;
never could I produce any verbal embossings and
twirlings to match a church lattice, while as for
65 E
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
secular lattices, instead of a doorway there Is a
fine lattice leading into every house, the windows
twinkle with lattices, and tendrils of flowers hang
from latticed balconies ; for which reason Sevilla
as a whole looks like a harem, like a cage, or no,
wait a bit it looks as If across it were stretched
chords, upon which your eyes strum an amorous
refrain to your enchantment. A Sevillan lattice
is not a lattice which encloses, but one which
forms a frame ; it is a decorative framework
affording a glimpse of the house. Ah, my friends,
those delightful glimpses of Sevillan patios, of
66
REJAS Y PATIOS
white anterooms Inlaid with faience, of an open
courtyard bestrewn with flowers and palms, of
a tiny paradise where human families dwell !
House after house wafts upon you the shadowy
coolness of its patio ; and however poor it may
be s the brick paving there Is arrayed with a tiny
67
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
7~/ / / i ii \^
68
REJAS Y PATIOS
green jungle of flower-pots containing an aspi-
distra or two, oleander, myrtle and speedwell, and
oozy dracaena and some sort of cheap and heavenly
asparagus ; and not only that, but from the walls
are suspended flower-pots with tradescantia,
syringa and cordyline, and panicum, and bird-
cages, while in the yard an old mammy takes her
ease in a wicker-chair ; but there are also patios
bordered with arcades and paved with majolica,
69
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
where a faience fountain gurgles ? and latania and
chamaerops spread their fans, and musa and coco-
nut and kentia and phoenix arch their long leaves
from a dense foliage of philodendra, aralia, clivia
and yukka and evonymus, to say nothing of ferns,
rnesembrianthema, begonias and camelias and all
the other curly, feathery, spiky and bulky forms
of leafage in paradise lost. And all this is arranged
in flower-pots in a tiny yard, and every house
gives you the surprising impression of a palace
when you peep through the shapely lattice into
its patio which recalls paradise and denotes
home.
Home and family. In every part of the world
there are houses and dwellings, but there are two
regions in Europe where the people have set
up homes in the really full, traditional and
poetical sense of the word. One is old-time
England, overgrown with ivy ? a place of fireside,
arm-chairs and books ; and the other is Spain
with the charming latticed glimpse of woman's
realm, family life, the blossoming heart of the
house. This lush, sweltering land has no family
fireside ; it has the family patio where you can
see the good people's homely comfort, their chil-
dren, their daily festival. And I wager that it is
a good thing to be a woman here, for she is
crowned with the great glory and high honour of
the household patio, amid a splendour of palms,
laurels and myrtle. I believe that the beauty of
the home is the special and potent glorification
70
REJAS Y PATIOS
of woman ; it declares her rule, exalts her renown
and surrounds her throne. And by woman , I do
not mean you, big-eyed muchacha, but your
mama> the old, bearded lady in the wicker-chair
it is in her honour that I write this.
Giralda
Giralda Is the landmark of Seville ; It is
JL so high that it Is visible from every direction.
If in the course of your globe-trotting you per-
ceive, high above the house-tops, the gallery and
turret of the Giralda, why, you can be certain that
you are In Seville, for which you may thank your
lucky stars. Now the Giralda Is a Moorish
minaret with Christian bells ; It is begirt with all
the beautiful devices of Arab decoration, and
right on the top of it there Is a statue of Faith,
while the lower part is constructed of Roman and
Visigoth ashlars. That Is just like Spain as a
whole ; it has Roman foundations, Moorish pomp
and a Catholic mind. Here Rome left only a
little of its urban civilization, but bequeathed
something more permanent the Latin farmer,
which implies the Latin language. And this
provincial Latin rusticity was assailed by the
highly developed, luxurious, almost decadent
culture of the Moors. In its way it was a para-
doxical culture ; even in the highest stage of its
refinement it retained a nomadic imprint. Where
the Moors built castles and palaces you will
detect signs that they were originally tent-
dwellers. The Moorish patio is a cosy repre-
72
GIRALDA
sentation of an oasis ; the gurgling fountain in
the Spanish courtyard, to this very day still
gratifies the desert dream "of cool springs; the
garden, represented by the contents of the flower-
pots, is a portable garden. The tent-dweller
packs up his home and all his luxuries so that he
can load them on asses ; that is why his home is
73
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
made of textiles and his luxuries are of filigree.
His tent is his castle ; it is garnished with every
pomp and splendour, but it is a pomp which a
man can carry on his back ; it is woven and
embroidered and stitched with goat's or lamb's
wool ; and Moorish architecture has retained the
delicate beauty and surface appeal of a woven
fabric. The Moor even built lace-work arch-
ways and embroidered ceilings and walls inter-
woven with ornaments. And even though he
could not pack up the Giralda and carry it away
on mules, he bedecked its walls with a carpet
pattern and a delicate fabric as if he had woven
and sewn it while sitting on crossed legs. And
when subsequently the Latin farmer and the
Visigothic knight with sword and crucifix drove
out the oriental sorcerer, they never got rid of
this richly woven dream ; the Gothic estilo florido,
the Renaissance estilo plateresco, the Baroque
estilo churrigueresco are nothing but architectural
diaper and embroidery and filigree quilting and
lace-work, which covers and, dream-like, conceals
the stone walls and transforms them into magical
glistening draperies* The nation perished but
its culture lives. This most Catholic of countries
has never ceased to be Moorish. All this and
many other things you could see with your own
eyes on the Giralda of Seville.
And from the Giralda you can see the whole
of Seville, so white and shiny that it makes your
eyes ache, and pink with its flat, tiled house-tops
74
&JRALDA
braided with faience cupolas and belfries and
battlements, palm-trees and cypresses ; and right
below, the huge, almost monstrous roof of the
cathedral, an eruption of pillars, Gothic turrets,
buttresses, groins and campaniles, and all around,
farther than the eye can see, the green and gold
75
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
plain of Andalusia, a-sparkle with glistening
homes. But if your sight is good, you will see
even more ; you will see families at the back of
the patios, gardens on balconies and terraces and
flat house-tops, wherever there is room for the
smallest flower-pot, and women watering flowers
or whitewashing their blanched cube of a house
with a nice creamy coating of lime ; as if in this
life there were nothing else to think of but beauty.
And now that we have the white town before
us, let us make a pilgrimage to two places, which
are particularly worthy of respect, and which are
adorned with a whole set of masterly and worship-
ful works. The first is the cathedral. Every
proper cathedral has two functions. To begin
with, it is so big that it is entirely cut off from
human habitations ; it stands in their midst like
a sacred elephant among a herd of sheep, isolated
and alien, a divine eminence projecting from the
human ruck. And in the second place, as soon
76
GIRALDA
as you enter It, you find one huge open space
amid the entrails of the town, larger in area than
a market-place, larger than a city square ; when
you arrive there from narrow lanes, yards and
household dwelling-rooms it is like reaching a
mountain-peak ; these pillars and vaulted roofs
do not enclose a space, but with an ample sweep
they extend it, thrusting a broad and high outlet
amid the rabble of a mediaeval town. Here, my
soul, heave a sigh of relief ; in the name of God
you can take a deep and soothing breath.
But at this point of time I cannot tell you every-
thing that was inside. Alabaster altars and vast
lattices and the tomb of Columbus. Murlllo and
wood carvings, gold and traceries, marble and
Baroque and retables and pulpits and many other
Catholic objects which I did not even see ; for
I looked at what surmounted it all, the five large,
steep naves, quite a divine naval display, a sub-
lime fleet swimming above the lustre of Seville ;
in spite of all the art and all the culture amassed
77
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
within Its flanks, It contains an abundance of free
and sacred space.
The other spot Is the ayuntamiento or town hall.
The exterior of Seville town hall Is fairly plastered
with relief and cornices, festoons and medallions
and garlands, pilasters, caryatides, scutcheons and
masks ; and inside, from ceiling to floor it is
bestrewn with wood-carvings and canopies, gild-
ings, faience, stucco and every variety of trappings
such as the masters of every guild could devise.
It is ostentiously done, and suggests that the city
fathers were almost naive in their eagerness to
show off ; it somehow recalls the good-natured
dignity of the king of hearts or diamonds. These
old town halls always move me by the emphasis
with which they declare the renown and brilliance
of the municipality ; I cannot help feeling that
In them an ancient urban democracy established
its throne and adorned it like an altar or like a
royal residence.
Now when present-day democracy can afford
a palace, it Is a bank or a commercial building.
In less progressive times it used to be a minster
or a town halL
Alcazar
FROM the outside It is a mediaeval, notched
wall of bare ashlars ; but within, it is a
Moorish castle covered with verses from the
Koran and bedecked from top to bottom with all
the weird hocus-pocus and sorcery of the Orient.
You must know that this Arabian Nights castle
was built by Moorish architects for a Christian
king. It was in the year of grace 1248 (as they
say in the historical novels) when the Christian
king Ferdinand entered the captured Moorish
city of Seville on St. Clement's Day ; but he
was assisted in performing this Christian deed by
one Ibn al Ahmar, Sultan of Granada, from
which it is obvious that religion has always been
hand in hand with politics. Whereupon the
Christian king, for reasons which were doubtless
pious and enlightened, drove three hundred thou-
sand accursed Musulmans out of Seville ; but
three hundred years later the Moorish masters
were building palaces for the Christian kings and
hidalgos, and were covering their walls with
subtle ornamentation and Cufic suras from the
Koran, Which fact throws a peculiar twilight
on the age-long struggle between Christians and
Moors.
79
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
And if I had to describe the patios, the halls
and the apartments of the Alcazar, I would set
about the task like a builder ; I would first of all
collect the material, such as stone and majolica,
stucco, marble and precious timbers, and whole
80
ALCAZAR
cartloads of the loveliest words for mixing the
mortar of my prose style ; then, as builders do,
I would start from the bottom, from the faience
floors ; on top of that I would place the slender
marble pillars, keeping a sharp eye on their
sockets and capitals, but I would pay particular
care to the walls inlaid with the choicest majolica
tiles, overspread with lacework of stucco, em-
blazoned with a whole delicate and lustrous
colour-scheme, pierced by windows, arcades,
apertures, trellises, ajimez, and galleries in accord-
anqe with the noble order of the horse-shoe, the
broken arch, the circle and the lobe ; whereupon,
above all this I would arch aloft the vaultings and
ceilings of stalactites, meshes and networks of
stucco, star-patterns, coffers, faiences, gold, tint-
ings and carvings, and having done all this, I
should feel thoroughly ashamed of my bungling
efforts ; for it cannot be described like that.
A better way would be for you to take a kaleido-
scope and turn it round and round until the sight
of that endless geometry makes you feel dizzy ;
watch the rippling of water until your senses are
benumbed ; drug yourself with hashish until you
see the whole world turning into an endless series
of dissolving patterns ; add to this everything that
intoxicates and beguiles, that is opalescent and
voluptuous ; everything that clouds the senses ;
everything that resembles lace and brocade, fili-
gree and jewels, the treasure of Ali Baba, precious
fabrics, a stalactite dome and the mere stuff of
81 F
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
dream ; and through this many- tinted, fantastic
and almost crazy array you must suddenly pass
a comb so as to produce a tremendously neat,
dainty and yet strict arrangement, a quiet and
contemplative constraint, a sort of dreamy and
82
ALCAZAR
wise renunciation, which deploys these fairy-tale
treasures in an almost unmaterial and unreal sur-
face, soaring upon fragile arcades. This unutter-
able pomp is so dematerialized in its -surf ace that
it becomes almost a mere vision projected on to
the walls. How material, gross and ungainly is
our art, appealing almost more to the sense of
touch than the sense of sight, when compared
with the work of these strange Moors ; we just
clutch and handle the things which please us ;
we pass our hands over It roughly and brutally,
with a gesture of ownership. Heaven alone
knows what sense of the untrammelled, what vast
oriental spirituality led the Moorish architects to
this purely optical enchantment, to these dreamy,
unmaterial edifices, woven of lace, sheen, aper-
tures, and kaleidoscopic patterns ; this altogether
worldly, sensual, luscious art actually quelled
matter and transformed it into a magical veil.
Life is a dream. On these terms it will be
realized that the Latin peasant and the Roman
Christian had to sweep away this too refined and
ornamental race. The European material and
tragic sense of values had to prevail over the
spiritualized sensualism of one of the noblest of
civilizations.
Let me add that, quite briefly, the difference
between European buildings and Moorish archi-
tecture is implicit In the fact that Gothic and,
indeed, Baroque, are built for spectators, standing
or kneeling, while Moorish architecture was
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
clearly Intended for spiritual voluptuaries who,
while lying on their backs, revelled in these
magical arches, ceilings, friezes and endless decor-
ative arabesques which were vaulted above their
heads to provide them with the inexhaustible
means for dreamy contemplation,
And all of a sudden these fantastic, delicate
patios, enclosed within the notched wall, are
invaded by a flock of white pigeons ; at this you
realize, almost with amazement, the true meaning
of this magical tectonic order ; it is absolute
lyricism.
Jardines
gardens of the Alcazar, In their own
JL particular way, are typical of Spanish gardens
as a whole ; they contain, it is true, a few odds
and ends which are to be seen nowhere else, such
as, the bafios or vaulted bath-room of Dona
Maria de Padilla, the mistress of the Christian
king Pedro the Cruel. It is said that, In accord-
ance with the etiquette of the time, the cabal-
leros of the court used to drink water from her
bath ; but I don't believe this, because I have
seen precious few caballeros in Seville drink
water.
Now I have tried to describe from memory
what a Spanish garden looks like ; but as there
wasn't room for it on one sheet of paper, I had
to make a threefold description :
i. A Spanish garden consists, first and fore-
most, of cypresses, clipped box-trees, myrtle,
privet, laurel, holly, laurocerasas, honeysuckle, and
suchlike diversely shaped shrubs, pyramids and
spheres, from which by a process of clipping,
linking and moulding are produced alleys and
passages, vaults and arches, green ramparts,
palings and borders, hedges, partitions and laby-
rinths, and, in fact, the whole ingenious geo-
85
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
metrical architecture of the old, severe school of
gardening; and in this sunny land It will be
readily understood that this is not really a garden
which produces plants, but a garden which
produces shade.
2. In the second place the Spanish garden con-
sists, first and foremost, of flagstones, bricks and
glazed tiles, majolica flights of steps, faience
palings, roundels and seats ; further, of majolica
tanks, fountains, cisterns, cascades, jets and
runnels gurgling with a delicate trickle of water ;
of faience pavilions, balconies, pergolas and
balustrades ; wherein the aforesaid majolica is
decorated with the neatest of black-and-white
chequering, meshing, streaking, patterning or
painting in ochre, indigo and Venetian scarlet ;
and this faience world teems with flower-pots :
flower-pots containing camelias, fig-plants, azaleas,
abutilons, begonias and coleuses, chrysanthemums
86
JARDINES
and asters ; whole avenues and clusters of flower-
pots baked to a turn ; flower-pots on the ground,
on the rims of shallow water-troughs, on terraces
and on steps.
3. In the third place, the Spanish garden eoii-
8 7
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
slstSj first and foremost, of a most luxuriant jungle,
of a tropical brushwood thrusting forth a regular
jet of palms, cedars and plane-trees, entwined
with bougainvillaea, clematis, aristolochiae, be-
gonia, as well as large-leaved shoots with
flowers resembling the convolvulus, which plant
is known here as " campanilla," also other shoots
blossoming like thorn-apple, which, too, is called
" campanilla," and other creeping plants, blossom-
ing like a huge clematis and likewise named
" campanllla J5 ; then there are dracsena and date-
palms, chamasrops, acacias, phoenix-palms, and
how on earth am I to know all their names ?
If you only knew the kind of leaves they have !
Glossy and stringy, tufted like ostrich feathers,
unsheathed like broad-swords, fluttering like
banners ; and you can take my word for it, that
if Eve clad herself in one of these leaves, it was
not to cover her shame, but for the sake of display
and luxury. In this dense paradisical forest there
is no room for the tender bud or the blade of
grass ; it may be that they cultivate grass here
only in flower-pots.
I have described this trio for you In three
separate sketches ; but in reality the whole thing
grows In one single spot, which of course, baffles
description. The Spanish garden represents, at
the same time, a clipped system of gardening,
crammed with miniature faience fountains, ter-
races, roundels and steps, littered with flower-
pots, draped with palm-jungles and creepers ;
88
JARDINES
and the whole lot sometimes occupies no more
than a bare handful of ground studded with
fountains and runnels ; never have I seen gardens
so amazingly concentrated and intensified as in
Spain. An English park is a cultivated land-
scape ; a Spanish garden is an artificial paradise.
A French park is a monumental edifice ; a
Spanish garden is an intimate dream. In those
nooks soft with shade, gurgling waters, cool
majolica, dazing fragrance and tropical leafage is
the gentle tread of another, a more pleasure-loving
race ; here, too, the Moors have left their traces.
Mantillas
ALL that follows Is intended In honour and
praise of the ladies of Seville. They are
petite and dark, dark-haired, with dark frisky eyes,
and mostly in dark attire ; they have tiny hands
and feet, as required by the old lyrics of chivalry,
and they look as if they
were just on their way to
confession, that is, they are
saintly and rather sinful in
appearance. But what gives
them particular splendour
and dignity Is the peineta,
the lofty tortoise-shell comb,
with which every lady of
Seville is crowned ; a sump-
tuous and triumphal comb,
like a crown or a halo.
This ingenious superstruc-
ture transforms every dark
chiquita into a tall, grand
lady ; with a thing like that
on her head she just has to
walk proudly, to carry her
head like a sacrament and to let only her eyes dart
about, which accordingly the ladies of Seville do.
90
MANTILLAS
The second and even greater glory of the ladies
of Seville is the mantilla, a lace wrap flung across
the queenly comb ; the mantilla, which is black
or white, like the veil of the Moslem women, the
cowl of the penitent, the mitre of the pontiff and
the helmet of the conqueror ; the mantilla, which
9 1
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
serves to crown woman and, at the same time, to
conceal her and make her shimmer more allur-
ingly. Never have I seen women wearing any-
thing more dignified and subtle than this garb
which blends nunnery, harem and the veil of the
beloved.
But allow me to stop and extol these women
of Seville. What self-assurance, what national
pride these dark chulas must have to make them
prefer the ceremonious and antique peineta and
mantilla to all enticements of the world's fashions.
Seville is by no means a village ; Seville is a rich,
vivacious city, the very air of which is amorous ;
if the ladies of Seville keep to their mantillas, that
is firstly because it suits them, and secondly
because they set store by being Spanish beauties
92
MANTILLAS
in all their antique renown ; but the chief thing
is that it suits them.
f If ^^ J J J ^s. v -
^?^<&) l l\
^^^
A >/
. Lj*
If the ladies of Seville are not crowned, they
are at least wreathed ; above their ears, in their
black hair they carry a whole nosegay, or at least
93
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
a rose, a camella or an oleander-blossom ; and
across their shoulders and arms they wear a silk
shawl, with an embroidery of large roses, heavy
tassels and a knot at the bosom ; or a manton de
Manilla, which is a silk mantle, shawl or robe,
94
MANTILLAS
studded with an embroidery of roses and tassels,
but it has to be worn with an air. It is flung in
a series of folds across arms and shoulder, then
it is drawn together tightly, the hands are placed
akimbo, the dainty croup is braced outward, and
below, there is a clatter of wooden heels ; I tell
you, to wear the manton properly demands great
skill as a dancer.
What struck me was that Spanish women have
contrived to preserve two great feminine privi-
leges : servitude and homage. The Spanish
woman is guarded like a treasure, after curfew
you will not meet a girl in the streets, and I have
even seen street- walkers accompanied by duefias,
evidently to protect their honour. I have heard
that every male member of a family, from the
remotest great-uncle down to the grandson, has
the right and the duty to watch, with sword in
hand, so to speak, over the maidenly honour of
his sisters, female cousins and other relatives.
No doubt there is just a little of the spirit of the
harem in this ; but at the same time it shows a
great respect for the particular dignity of woman.
While man prides himself on his worth as a
cavalier and protector, to woman is vouchsafed
the renown and prestige of a guarded treasure ;
whereby both sides, as far as honour is concerned,
get their fair share.
But, really, what pleasant folk they are : youths
in Andalusian broad-brimmed hats, ladies in
mantillas, girls with a nosegay behind their ears
95
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
96
MANTILLAS
and dark optics beneath drooping eyelids ; It is
good to see how light-footedly they bear them-
selves, with the strutting gait of pigeons, how they
flirt, and with what passion and seemliness their
eternal wooings are fraught ! And life itself here
is sonorous, yet without any uproar ; in the whole
of Spain I did not hear a single quarrel or a cross
word, possibly because a quarrel would mean the
use of a knife ; don't take it amiss if I refrain
from telling you which of these two methods
shows a higher sense of decorum.
97
Triana
TRIANA is the gipsy and working-class
quarter of Seville on the other side of the
Guadalquivir ; besides this, Triana is a special
kind of dance, as well as a ditty of its own kind,
just as Granadinas are typical songs of Granada,
Murcianas of Murcia, Cartageneras of Cartagena
and Malaguenas of Malaga. Just imagine Brixton
having its own sort of dance and Golders Green
its national poetry ; or Birmingham having an
entirely different musical folk-lore from Ipswich,
and Winchester, let us say, being distinguished
TRIANA
by a particularly passionate and eccentric dance.
I am not aware that Winchester has gone to such
lengths yet.
Of course, I trotted off to have a look at the
gipsies of Triana ; it was Sunday evening, and
I expected to find Gitanas
dancing there at every
street-corner to the sound
of the tambourine ; I
expected too that they
would drag me off to their
camp and that terrible
things would befall me ;
still, I resigned myself to
my fate, and off I went
to Triana. Nothing what-
ever happened ; not that
there was any lack of
gipsies, male and female,
there ; the place swarms
with them, but there is
no camp. There are only
some tiny cottages with
clean patios, with a regular
gipsyish abundance of
children, mothers suckling
their babies, almond-eyed girls with a red flower
in their blue-black hair, slender gipsy-lads with
a rose between their teeth, a peaceable Sunday
crowd taking its ease on its doorsteps, I, too,
took my ease among them and hurled almond-
99
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
eyed glances at the girls there. I can testify that
most of them are of pure, handsome Indian type,
with their eyes just a trifle aslant ? with olive-
coloured skin and fine teeth ; moreover, . the
movement of their croup is even more supple
than that of the girls in Seville. That must be
enough for you ; it was enough for me in that
melting night at Triana.
And because I was satisfied with little, the local
deity of Triana rewarded me with a full-blown
romeria. Suddenly, in the distance a clatter of
castanets became audible, and through the narrow
street of Triana glided a high car, dragged by oxen
and festooned with wreaths and an abundance
of tulle curtains, canopies, trimmings, flounces,
drapery, veils and all sorts of other fallals, and
the nice white body of the car was full up inside
with girls who were clicking the castanuelas and
singing at the top of their voices, as people do
sing in Spain. I solemnly assure you that this
garnished car, illuminated with a red fancy
lantern, had the strange voluptuous aspect of a
marriage-bed filled with girls. Each one in turn
obliged with a loud seguidilla, while the rest kept
time with their clattering castanets, clapped their
hands and made shrill noises. And round the
next corner a similar car was gliding along with
a load of bedizened, shouting and clattering girls.
And then there was a carriage drawn by a team
of five donkeys and mules, driven by caballeros
in Andalusian sombreros. And there were other
IOO
TRIANA
caballeros on prancing horses. I asked the by-
standers what this meant, and they said that it
was the vuelta de la romeria^ sabe ? I must
explain that a romeria is a pilgrimage to some
sacred spot in the vicinity, to which the populace
of Seville, especially the populace of both sexes,
goes on foot and in conveyances ; and on the
girls' petticoats there are broad flounces or what-
101
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
ever they're called, and they cackle like a cartload
of sparrows.
And when, amid the clatter of castanets, the
merry romeria had disappeared in the street of
Triana, the regional secret of the castanuelas was
revealed to me : they recall the song of the
nightingale, the chirrup of crickets and the clatter
of donkeys' hoofs on the cobbles, all in one.
IO2
Corrida
BY chance, while I am writing this, the cat
has climbed on to my lap and is purring
away for all she is worth. Now I must admit
that, although the animal is really in my way and
won't take no for an answer, I somehow couldn't
bring it over myself to kill her with a spear or an
espada, whether on foot or on horseback. So
you mustn't think that I'm a bloodthirsty or
brutal person, although I witnessed the defeat
of six bulls, and didn't go away until it was the
turn of the seventh one, and even then not on
moral grounds, but rather because it had begun
to bore me. For one thing, the corrida was dull ;
my opinion is that those bulls were too tough.
I may say that during the bull-fights I had
very mixed feelings ; there were amazing moments
which I shall never forget, and painful junctures
when I wished that the earth would swallow me
up . The finest sight of all is , of course , the solemn
entry of the toreadors into the arena ; what you
ought to see is the yellow sand beneath the blue
sky, the circular plaza de toros, packed with
people ; on top of that the trumpets begin to
blare, and the embroidered alguacilillos ride
into the arena ; after them, in showy jackets and
103
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
gold-bespangled cloaks, cocked hats and silk
knickers , the matadores, espadas, banderilleros
and picadores on their mares and the chulos
and the teams of mules, four-in-hand, festooned
with bells ; and they all bear themselves so grandly
and yet so buoyantly that no opera chorus on earth
can hold a candle to them.
But that day there was something special on
the programme : a " f rente a rente " contest,
i.e. a forehead-to-forehead struggle between two
matador soloists, who keep up the old tradition of
the aristocratic corrida on horseback. One was
Don Antonio Canero, a riding-master from Cor-
doba, who was dressed in Andalusian style, and
the other was Joao Branco Nuncio, a Portuguese
rejoneador in blue rococo attire. First of all Don
Antonio pranced into the arena on an Andalusian
stallion, saluted the Infanta and the President as
a cavalier should, and then, with horse and som-
brero, brandished a salute to everybody ; next, the
gate flew open, and in dashed a black bundle of
104
CORRIDA
muscles, a bull with a chest and neck like a crag,
stopped short, dazzled by the hot glare of the sun,
lashed his tail, and in a cheerful sort of way darted
after an enemy who, holding a thin lance, was
waiting for him on horseback in the middle of the
arena. I should like to describe what followed,
step by step ; but where am I to get the words
from, which would do justice to this dance of the
bull, the horse and the rider ? A fighting bull
is a fine sight when he stands there panting, as
glossy as asphalt, a volcanic animal who until
then has been provoked to the pitch of frenzy by
being kept in a cage ; now he was standing
still, his hoofs wedged in the ground, and with
flaming eyes he searched for the opponent whom
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LETTERS FROM SPAIN
he should overwhelm. And then the horse
pranced up to him with graceful, ceremonious
movements, waggling Its flanks like a ballet-dancer
and lifting Itself on Its sinews ; the pitch-black
heap of muscularity began to ripple, and dashed
forth In a terrific onslaught, his horns nearly
touching the ground, with the momentum of a
projectile and the unexpected elasticity of a chunk
of indiarubber. I must confess that at that
moment the palms of my hands went damp with
fear, just as once before when I was climbing a
mountain and my foot slipped. It was only just
a moment ; two leaps, and the prancing horse,
at a seemly gallop, lifting its feet high, was
wheeling behind the bull's bony rump. The
cheering which burst forth like a volley, checked
the indiarubber tank in his headstrong dash ; It
seemed to have annoyed the bull ; he swished his
tail and dashed off at a gallop after the horse.
But the bull's tactics are to attack point-blank ;
the tactics of the horse and rider are to wheel In
circles. The bull, with his horns well forward,
rushed along with the intention of seizing and
tossing his enemy with a terrific blow ; suddenly he
came to a standstill with an air of amazement and
looking rather stupid, when he found that he was
faced with nothing but the empty arena. But
his tactics are not only to gore but also to maul
with a dreadful slantwise wrench ; even his
Impetuous onslaught is sometimes delayed by a
sudden side movement, straight towards the
106
CORRIDA
horse ? s weak spots ; I really can't tell you whether
It was the horse or the rider who first realized that
this tricky move was coming, but I shouted and
clapped with enormous relief when at the very
next Instant the splendid horse was performing
his pirouettes five yards further on. I rather fancy
that the horse, too, puts all his heart and nerve
Into this jousting, because every five minutes the
rejoneador gallops off behind the barrier and comes
back on a fresh horse.
Now this dance Is so gorgeous and exciting that
I almost forgot to mention that those who take
part in It are out to kill ; or rather, I forgot it
while I was still actually In the arena. I had
noticed, of course, that more than once during an
onrush the rejoneador propped himself up with
his lance against the bull's neck, but the bull
merely shook himself and galloped on ; it looked
as if they were just playing. The second lance
lodged in his neck and stuck there quivering, just
like a penholder when the point of the nib has got
fixed in the floor. The bull tried desperately
to shake away the thing that had bitten Its way
into his throat ; he jerked his head to and fro,
he stood up on his hind-legs ; but the spike was
firmly fixed in that solid mass of muscle. There
stood the bull, scooping the sand with his feet,
as if he wanted to dig himself In, and he bellowed
with pain and anger ; froth trickled from his
j ow l perhaps that is how a bull sheds tears.
But now the horse with his opponent was able to
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LETTERS FROM SPAIN
raise itself briskly and nimbly in front of him.
The wounded bull stopped roaring, began to
snort, humped his back and made a frenzied on-
slaught, I closed my eyes, because I expected
that this would lead to a tangle of crushed and
mauled legs and bodies in the sand of the arena.
When I opened my eyes, the bull stood there with
his head upraised ; the broken lance was twitching
to and fro in his neck, while the horse was tripping
along towards him like a ballet-girl ; only its
drooping ears showed any sign of terror. What
a stout heart this colt has ; what daring, what
elegance in the aspect of this smart rider who
manages his horse with his knees, while he plunges
his eyes into those of the bull ; but what a magni-
ficent and natural hero is this bull which, though
he can weep, cannot retreat. The man masters
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CORRIDA
the horse, and ambition masters the man ; but all
the bull wants is to be alone in the arena : who is
putting himself between me and all the cows in
the world ? See, now he is lowering his forehead,
and once more he dashes forward full-tilt, with
all his terrific bulk against this one opponent who
trips along the arena ; he hurls himself like a
rock, but there are moments when the sinews of
his feet suddenly give way in a ghastly manner.
Is he wavering ? No, that Is nothing ; full speed
ahead ! Three cheers for the bull ! At this
moment the third lance shot out like lightning.
The bull staggered and then pulled himself
together ; he was just about to brace his muscles
for a new clash, when suddenly he lay down almost
peacefully like a cow chewing the cud. The rider
drove his horse round the resting warrior. Now
the bull made a lunge as if he were about to jump
up, but then he seemed to change his mind : well,
perhaps, after all. 111 rest here a little. At this
the rider wheeled round on his horse and galloped
from the arena amid a drum-fire of clapping and
shouting. The bull laidhis head on the ground as if
resting only a moment, only an instant, whereupon
his body relaxed and braced itself again, his legs
gawkily stretched themselves out, and queerly,
almost unnaturally projected from the black bulk
of his body. Rigor mortis. From the opposite
gate, a team of mules comes rushing In, with a
tinkle of bells ; after a few seconds, amid a
flicking of whips, they drag the burden of the
I0 9
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
dead bull at a gallop through the sand of the
arena.
Well, I have kept nothing from you as to how
it strikes a spectator. Is it magnificent or cruel ?
I do not know ; what I. saw was, if anything, most
magnificent ; and when I look back at it now
I cannot help wondering whether it would be
better for that dauntless and noble specimen of a
bull to end in the shambles by being banged on
the head with a bludgeon ! Would that be more
humane than for him to perish this way in a fight,
as befits his mettlesome and pugnacious heart ?
no
CORRIDA
Well, I don't know ; but it was a relief to me
when I was able to look at the empty arena, yellow
as fire, beneath the blue sky and surrounded by a
noisy and excited crowd.
Now the blue, showy Portuguese cantered into
the circle, galloped round the arena, turned and
saluted with his headgear; his mount moved
even more trippingly, and it lifted its legs
even more prettily, as prescribed by the riding
academy. The black bull which burst through
the gate was a bad-tempered, stubborn beast ; he
stood there hunched up, with his horns prepared
for a sally, but he would not let himself be enticed
to make a dash ; it was only when the trembling
horse trippingly marked time a few paces from
him, that he rushed out as if propelled by a cata-
pult. He was so sure of what he was about, that
he almost turned a somersault on the spot where
he expected the impact with the horse's chest ;
but at the same instant that his black bulk started
moving, the horse, turning round in response to
the rider's knees, galloped off like an arrow from
the bow-string, and fairly flew onwards, then
turned while galloping at a headlong pace, and
trotted back in gavotte time to the snorting bull.
Never have I seen a rider so perfectly blended
with his horse ; a rider who sat motionless in the
saddle whether galloping or jumping, who could
turn his horse in the fraction of a second, pull him
up short, make him rear, get him, while at the
gallop, to tackle a high jump, a long jump and
in
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
other capers which I do not even know the names
of ; and all the time he held the reins lightly in
one hand as if they were a cobweb, while in the
other lurked the murderous barb of the lance.
But now just bear in mind that this feat of horse-
manship was performed by a rococo dandy, face
to face with the horns of an infuriated bull it
is true that in this particular instance the sharp
tops of the horns were made safer by means of
rubber nobs ; bear in mind, I say, that he slipped
away, jumped aside and attacked, darted off like
an arrow and bounded back like a piece of india-
rubber, grazed the bull with his spear while
racing along at full speed, broke the shaft of his
lance, and then defenceless, with the fuming
beast full tilt after him, cantered to the barrier
for a new lance. At the gallop he thrust three
spears home, and then, taking no further notice
of the bull, pranced out of the arena ; the bellow-
ing animal still had to be attended to with a sword,
and, to wind up with, the puntillero had to run
a dagger through him. It was a revolting piece of
butchery.
The third bull was dealt with by two com-
petitors. The Portuguese had the first spear ;
while he was dallying in front of the bull's un-
covered horns, the Andalusian was marking time
on his colt, ready to join the fray at a moment's
notice. But the third bull meant business ;
truculent and astoundingly quick, he did not stop
attacking from the moment when, amid clouds of
112
CORRIDA
z$
VX)
113
H
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
dust and sand, he dashed Into the arena. Lunge
followed lunge ; this bull was quicker than the
horse, and chased the rider all over the arena.
But suddenly he took It into his head to have a
go at the expectant Andaluslan. The Andalusian
turned his horse round and fled ; the bull stub-
bornly followed him and caught him up. This
Is the moment when the rejoneador, to protect
himself and his horse, lets fly with his spear to
stop the bull's little game ; but, in this case, the
first spear belonged to the Portuguese. The
Andaluslan lowered his outstretched spear, then,
with heaven alone knows what effort of strength,
dragged the horse aside, and scurried away amid
tremendous cheering and shouting ; for the
Spaniards appreciate a feat like that. The Portu-
guese took charge of his bull and led It forward
at a gallop ; while racing along he took aim with
his lance, but the bull just jerked his head, and the
spear flew a long way off into the sand. It was
now the Spaniard's turn ; he took charge of the
bull and tried to tire him out by letting himself
be chased all over the arena. Meanwhile, Don
Joao came back with a fresh horse, and looked
on. This bull seemed to have a strategy of his
own ; he hounded the Andalusian to the barrier,
attacking his left flank. Suddenly the audience
rose up in their excitement ; the bull had now
caught up the rider on his uncovered left flank ;
at this, the blue rococo dandy dashed out full
tilt against the bull, the horse reared and jumped
114
CORRIDA
aside, the bull jerked his head towards his new
opponent who now flinched back ; but at that
instant the Andalusian had already twisted his
horse round and thrust his lance into the bull's
neck, like a knife into a lump of butter. Where-
upon the crowd stood up and cheered; and I,
who never, not even in books, can find anything
attractive about toying with death, for death is
neither a joke nor a spectacle I had a lump in
my throat ; of course, this was the result of horror,
but of admiration as well. For the first time in
my life I beheld chivalry, in accordance with the
formula : with arms in hand, face to face with
death, risking life for the honour of the thing.
Reader, I cannot help myself : there is something
in it ; something great and splendid. But not
even the third spear finished off this astounding
115
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
bull ; again a man had to come rushing up with a
dagger and the crowd swarmed over the arena,
which lay there clean and yellow amid the blue
Sevillan sabbath.
116
Lidia Ordinaria
THE second part of the corrida was a fight
on ordinary lines, which is more dramatic,
but also more distressing. I should not like to
judge all bull-fights on the strength of that one,
because it was an unlucky day. The very first
bull, when the banderillas reached him, went mad
and made a stubborn attack ; but the shouting
crowd did not want him to get tired out at the
very start ; so there was a blare of trumpets,
the arena was emptied, and Palmefio, the gold-
bespangled espada, went to pink the bull. But
the animal was still too quick ; at the first onset
he gored Palmefio in the groin, tossed him in a
semicircle over his head, and dashed up to his
powerless body. I had previously seen an infuri-
ated bull tearing and trampling on a cloak which
had been cast aside. It was a moment when my
heart really missed a beat. At this particular
instant a torero arrived on the scene with a cloak
and hurled himself straight at the horns of the
bull, whose eyes he covered with the mantilla ;
he then made the attacking bull follow him.
Meanwhile two chulos lifted up the hapless
Palmefio and carried the handsome, unconscious
fellow off at a canter. " Pronostico reservado "
117
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
was the report which the next day's papers
published about his injuries.
Now if I had left immediately after this incident,
I should have been haunted by the memory of
one of the most impressive sights I have ever
witnessed : a chulo, whose name was not even
mentioned in the papers, exposed his stomach to
the bull's horns, to get him away from the wounded
matador ; without hesitation he diverted the
madly attacking bull towards himself, and at the
last instant just managed to leap out of his way ;
another torero had already arrived, and with a
cloak was attracting the bull towards him, so that
the first man could wipe the sweat from his fore-
head with a gilt-diapered sleeve. Then the two
ornamented men withdrew, and a new espada,
sword in hand, took the place of the crack per-
former who had been wounded.
118
LIDIA ORDINARIA
The matador sobresallente was a man with a
long, dismal face, and was evidently no favourite.
He proceeded to take charge of the bull, who was
what might be called a bad hat. From this
moment onward the corrida degenerated into a
shocking display of butchery, when the frenzied
crowd by their shouting and whistling fairly
hurled the unpopular espada right at the horns
of the savage animal ; and with clenched teeth.
as if death was in store for him, the man went
too, and with an uncertain hand pinked the bull.
The bull dragged away the sword which had got
fixed in the wound, where it was jerking to and
fro. A fresh shout of disapproval. The toreros
ran up to keep the bull busy with their cloaks.
The mob hounded them on with fierce shouts :
it was eager for the bull to die a chivalrous death,
come what may. The pale matador set out once
again to slay with sword and cudgel, in accordance
with the rules of the game ; but the bull then
119
LETTERS FROM SPAIN /"
would not budge an Inch, and stood still with
upraised head, his neck bristling with banderillas,
and garbed, so to speak, with a mantle of blood.
The espada, with the point of his sword, made
b0^o0^^oOOOo^o^o^^o^J>o
^0 S t nOOOOOOOO Ov o^L c C C ^
o3r>0&V^n^&VOVon^J:eou~ Cu c
him lower his head so that he could pierce his
shoulder, but the bull stood there mooing like
a cow. The toreros flung cloaks over the ban-
derillas embedded in his neck, thinking that the
fresh pangs of pain would goad him out of his
120
LIBIA ORDINARIA
glum obstinacy ; but the pain made the bull
bellow and pass water, and then he scraped his
feet, as if he wanted to hide himself in the ground.
At last the matador got him to lower his head to
the ground, and pinked the motionless animal ; but
not even this wound finished him off ; the pun-
tillero also had to fling himself like a weasel upon
the bull's neck, and ran him through with a
dagger. Amid the frantic laughter and outcries
of twenty thousand people the lanky matador, all
glittering with gold, departed with a small,
shaggy tuft of black hair in the nape of his neck,
as tradition enjoins ; his sunken eyes were fixed
on the ground. Nobody shook his hand when
he passed the barrier ; and this luckless man had
to tackle three more bulls.
And once again the corrida unfolds itself in
all its dazzling beauty and horror, like a haunting
dream. Once again the toreros flaunt their
gilded mantlets and jackets, the gold-clad pica-
dores enter on wretched, blindfold nags, and take
up their positions where they await the bull, who,
in the meanwhile, is kept busy by the toreros
with their cloaks, their capering and dodging.
The toreros egg him on to meet the picador,
who stretches out his long pike, while his blind-
fold nag shivers with fright and would like to
rear, if it could still manage such a feat. Now
this particular bull was nothing loth, and with
zest made a dash straight for the picador ; he
bumped his neck against the lance, and it was
121
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
a marvel that he did not fling the picador from
the saddle ; but he only shook himself and started
off again at a headlong gallop, caught the bony
jade, rider and all, on his horns and hurled them
on to the planks of the barrier. At the present
day, by order of the dictator, the belly and chest
of the picador's nag must be covered with a
mattress, so that although the bull generally
knocks it over and lays It out, he rarely rips its
flank open, as used to happen ; all the same,
the Interlude with the picadors is brutal and
stupid ; you know, It simply doesn't seem decent
to watch that decrepit gelding convulsively strug-
gling, or to drag it along to make it submit to
the bull's terrific onslaught, then to set it on its
legs again and hound It once more against the
bull's horns ; for with the blunt spear these two
picadors have to inflict three deep wounds on
the bull, so that he may lose a little blood and
be " castigado." The fight itself may be a fine
spectacle ; but the terror, reader, the terror of
beast and man alike, is an appalling and ignoble
sight. And when horse, rider and spear are
mingled In a regular welter, the toreros come
leaping forward with their cloaks and take away
the snorting bull, who always wins this first
skirmish at the cost of an ugly wound between
the shoulder-blades.
Then the picadores trot off, the bull becomes
infuriated by the red linings of the cloaks, and
the banderillos come trotting into the arena.
122
LIDIA ORDINARIA
They are, if anything, even more resplendent
than the others, and in their hands they carry
their javelins, or rather long wooden darts,
decorated with paper frills and ribbons ; they
trip along in front of the bull, call him names,
wave their arms and rush towards him to try
and induce him to make a blind, rampageous
attack with lowered head and outstretched neck.
At the instant when the bull rushes out, the
banderillo raises himself on tiptoe, arches his back
like a bow, and, taking aim with the banderillas
in his hands raised on high, waits. I must say
that there is something extremely fine about this
123
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
easy, elegant posture of a man facing a raging
beast. In the last fraction of the instant the two
banderillas hurtle like lightning, the banderillero
leaps aside and departs at a trot, while the bull
jumps about in the queerest manner, trying to
shake away the two darts which are waggling to
and fro in his neck. After a while he gets another
pair of beribboned banderillas fixed in him, and
the nimble banderillero saves himself by jumping
over the barrier. By this time the bull is bleeding
profusely, his huge neck is drenched with regular
honeycombs of blood ; with the banderillas stick-
ing out of him he calls to mind the Heart of Our
Lady of the Seven Sorrows.
And once again the chulos came running up
to provoke and, at the same time, to tire the bull
with their cloaks ; for the bull must not be
allowed to get sluggish. They waved the red
lining in front of him ; the bull blindly rushed
out against the ample surface presented by the
cloak, and the torero just managed by a single
step to avoid the horns. But this bull tried to
amuse the crowd ; he rushed against the toreros
in such brisk and aggressive style that they all
jumped over the barrier with the agility of fleas.
At this the bull just lashed his tail, with one leap
bounded over the barrier after them, and chased
them into the narrow passage between barrier
and public. The whole staff connected with the
corrida scuttled away into the arena to save
itself ; the bull triumphantly trotted through the
124
LIDIA ORDINARIA
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
passage and returned to the arena, proudly
swishing its tail ; and by making another rush
it flung every living soul across the barrier. Now
he was sole master of the arena and he showed
that he realized it, too ; he seemed to be testily
urging the whole amphitheatre to applaud him.
Once more the chulos came running out to tease
him a little. The crowd gave vent to a roar ;
it wanted to fling the espada on to the animal
in all its magnificent strength. The gold-
bespangled espada with the sunken eyes and lips
pressed tightly together stood in front of the
126
LIBIA ORDINARIA
president's private box, a red muleta in his left
hand and a drooping sword in his right ; he
plainly did not care what happened ; he was
waiting for the president to give a sign, but the
president hesitated. The toreros was leaping
round the bull who was chasing them away at
the tips of his horns. The crowd rose up
threateningly and yelled. The waiting espada
lowered his head with its black tuft of hair at
the back and the president nodded ; thereupon
trumpet-blasts resounded, the arena was emptied
in a trice, and the espada with sword upraised,
with motionless countenance was promising the
bull his death. Then alone, brandishing his
muleta, he entered the arena to cope with the
bull.
127
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
This corrida was not a good one. The espada
risked his life with a courage which was little
short of desperate ; but the bull gave him no
chance to score a hit, and chased him along over
the sand, took his muleta away on his horns, and
then harried the unprotected matador, who saved
himself by getting across the barrier, but lost
his sword in the process. At times this jousting
of man and animal is superb ; the espada, with
his muleta in front of him, tries to lure the animal
on ; the bull makes a dash at the red rag, the
man slips aside, and with his sunken eyes searches
for a spot on the bulPs neck where he can fix
his weapon. All this is the work of an Instant ;
and then once again, an attack, a feint and a blow
which misses its aim. This duel between bull
and man is such a strain on the nerves that after
a while you feel dazed. Several times the chulos
ran out to relieve the espada, who was on his
last legs, but with a yell the public drove them
away ; thereupon the espada feebly shrugged his
shoulders, and once more went for the bull. He
squared up to him nicely, but his pinking was a
failure. It was not until he was using his fifth
sword that the bull succumbed ; it was an awful
business ; when the espada left, he looked as
if somebody had given him a sound thrashing,
and the whole amphitheatre hissed him ; I felt
more agonizingly sorry for him than for the bull
who was breathing his last.
The sixth bull was a huge, white creature,
128
LIDIA ORDINARIA
129
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
weak on his legs and with no more fight in him
than a cow ; they almost had to push him along
before he made an unsteady rush towards the
picador's nag. The toreros with their cloaks
drew him along by the horns to make him put
up some sort of opposition ; and the banderilleros
jumped about in front of him like mad, waving
their arms, calling him names and jeering at
him, to egg him on to what turned out to be a
half-hearted and ungainly attack. The crowd
whooped with resentment ; they wanted the bull
to fight, and the result of this was that worse
torture was inflicted on the blood-stained, bellow-
ing animal. I wanted to leave ; but the people
were standing up, shaking their fists and making
a racket ; there was no chance of getting through,
and so I covered my eyes and waited for it to
stop. When, after what seemed an infinitely long
time I opened my eyes, the bull was still alive,
staggering about on shaky legs.
It was not until the seventh bull came on the
scene that I managed to push my way out. As
I rambled through the streets of Seville, I had
a queer feeling of shame, but I really do not
know whether my callousness or my weakness
was the cause of it. There in the amphitheatre,
at one particular moment, I had begun to protest
that it was a brutal business ; next to me sat a
Dutch engineer who had settled in Seville, and
he was astonished at my protest. " This is my
ninth corrida," he said to me, " but it was only
130
LIDIA ORDINARIA
the first one which seemed brutal." " This was
a bad corrida," a Spaniard informed me by way
of soothing my feelings ; " but you ought to see
what a good one is like." Perhaps ; but it is
hardly likely that I shall ever see a more heart-
rending figure than that lanky, gaudily-dressed
fellow with the face of an ox-herd and woebegone.
sunken eyes, whose shoulders were weighed
down with the resentment of twenty thousand
people. If I had known enough Spanish, I
should have gone up to him and said : Juan,
things will go wrong with us sometimes ; but
bitter is the bread of man who depends upon
the favour of the public.
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LETTERS FROM SPAIN
And I reflect on this : In Spain I never actually
saw the whip used on a horse or a mule ; the
dogs and cats in the streets are trustful and
affectionate, which shows that they are well
treated. The Spaniards are not cruel to animals.
The corrida is a struggle between man and beast
which, in its essentials, is as old as time ; it has
all the beauty of a struggle, but its pangs as well.
Perhaps the Spaniards can view this beauty and
this struggle in so perfect a light that they do
not even see the cruelty which accompanies it.
It certainly offers plenty to feast the eyes on,
plenty of superb feats of agility, plenty of danger
and magnificent courage but another time I
would keep away from a corrida.
And here the voice of temptation in my heart
adds : unless a champion espada were there .
132
Flamencos
" means Flemish but curi-
ously enough there is nothing at all Flemish
about the flamenco ; it suggests rather something
gipsy-like and Moorish, a mixture of the orient
and a night-club in equal parts. Nobody could
explain to me why it is called flamenco, but the
northern Spaniards rather object to it precisely
because of its oriental flavour. A flamenco is
singing and dancing and strumming on guitars,
a clapping of hands and a clattering of castanets
and wooden heels, and on top of all that there
is shouting. And the Flamencos are singers,
dancers, ballerinas and guitar-players, who from
midnight onwards perform their tricks in noc-
turnal haunts. These popular songsters have
such names as Cadiz Joe, Malaga Game-Leg,
Valencia Snub-Nose or the Utrera Lad ; often
they are gipsies and their fame extends beyond
the frontiers of their province, according to their
ability in sustaining trills. I really do not know
how to set about explaining all this to you. Let's
try it in alphabetical order :
Aha : \ Ole ! j Joselito ! j Bueno, bueno !
Bailor : Most of the Andalusian dances are solo
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
134
FLAMENCOS
dances ; the guitars strum a jerky, tinkling
prelude, the seated troop begin to bestir
themselves, beat time with their feet, clap
their hands, begin to rattle the castanets ;
suddenly one of them rises, his arms fly up
in the air and his legs begin to perform a
frenzied dance with lots of stamping about
it. Take a Highland fling, a cake-walk, a
tango, a Cossack gopak, an Apache dance,
a fit of frenzy, unconcealed lechery and other
frantic movements, kindle them to a white
heat, and begin to batter them with castanets,
shouting all the while ; then the mixture
would begin to twirl as the flamenco dance
twirls, with impassioned pauses in melody
and dance amid a deafening rhythmic clatter
of the castanets. Unlike Northern dances,
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
the Spanish dance occupies not only the feet,
but the whole swaying body and especially
the arms which are flung upward with a
snapping of the fingers against the castanets,
while the feet perform dancing movements,
which involve much stamping and beating
of the heels on the ground. You might
almost say that the feet only provide an
accompaniment to the dance, which occupies
the flanks and arms, as well as the trunk
braced in a curve and undulating amid the
wild clatter of castanets and heels. The
Spanish dance is a mysterious and, in effect,
an orchestral interplay of the sharp, per-
cussive rhythm of strings, castanets, tam-
136
FLAMENCOS
bourines and heels, with the supple flowing
curve of the body as It dances. The music
and all its appurtenances, including the
shouting and clapping of hands, sets a
whirling tempo which is boisterously in-
creased or slackened like the beating of the
heart ; but the body as it dances to the music
plays a fluid solo violin melody, thrilling and
passionate, a melody which exults, allures
and laments, stormily swept along by the
throbbing rhythm of the uproar accompany-
ing the dance.
Brindar : Whereupon the guitars crash forth an
ear-splitting note fit to break the strings in
two, the onlookers begin to shout, and hand
the dancer their glasses to drink a toast
from.
Cantor : The cantos flamencos are sung in this
way : the singer, whose name is Nino de
Utrera or something of that sort, sits down
on a chair among the guitar-players, who
plunge Into a jangling overture interspersed
with pizzicato swirlings, pauses and breaks ;
and to this the singer begins to add his
warblings like a canary, with eyes half-
closed, head thrown back and hands resting
on his knees. Yes, he screeches like a bird ;
he unsheathes his voice in a long, full-
throated yell, which gets louder and louder,
and is appallingly intense and protracted, as
if, for a bet, he was trying to find out how
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
138
FLAMENCOS
long he could keep It up with one breath ;
suddenly this outstretched voice begins to
quaver in a long trill, a protracted and
piercing coloratura, which indulges in a tune
of its own, performs a fluttering ripple ,
starts off on a queer, graceful meander, and
suddenly sinks and dies away as the guitars
chime in with a brisk strumming. And with
their strains Is joined and mingled this naked,
shrill and rhetorical voice, bewailing Its dis-
tress or whatever it Is, in a passionate recita-
tive, uncoiling sluggish and drunken from
the abrupt rhythm of the guitars, and with
one gasp swerving into that long, billowy
vocal arabesque which dies away amid the
clattering of the guitars. It is just like a
shiny and flexible blade describing in the
air luminous ripples and figures of eight ;
It Is also like the call of the muezzin and the
enraptured strains of a canary chirping on
its perch ; it Is the dirge of the wilderness
and, at the same time, a specimen of pro-
digious professional virtuosity ; It contains
a great deal of natural gusto, of gipsyish
hocus-pocus, a certain amount of Moorish
artifice and untrammelled candour. It has
nothing In common with the honeyed voices
and the cooing of the Venetian gondoliers
and the Neapolitan tricksters ; In Spain
they shout at the top of their voices, harshly
and frantically. The songs are generally
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
filled with the woes of love, with taunts,
jealousy and revenge ; they are a kind of
epigram in one quatrain, set to music and
prolonged by the wave of a slowly uncoiling,
lingering trill. That is how they sing the
seguidillas, as well as the malaguefias, grana-
dinas, tarantas, soleares, vidalitas, bulerias
and other types of song, which differ from
each other more in their contents than their
form ; in fact, even the saetas, which are
sung at Seville in the processions during the
140
FLAMENCOS
Holy Week, have the same wild and passion-
ate flamenco style as the amorous seguidilla.
Castanuelas : These are not only musical instru-
ments which produce rattlings and drum-
beats, trills, cooings and warblings merely
to keep up a rhythmic rattling is very diffi-
cult, as I know by experience but also, and
particularly, dance instruments which make
the twirl of the dance pass into the fingers
and, just like a kettle-drum, raise the arms
in a sweeping curve above the head into that
splendid fundamental gesture of Spanish
dances. The actual sound of the castafluelas
141
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
recalls darkest Africa with its frantic hanker-
ing after the rhythm of the drum-beat.
When, during one of those whirlwind dances,
the ear-splitting clatter of the castanets is
heard amid piercing, provocative shouts and
a rhythmical clapping of hands, then, dear
reader, there is such a thrilling uproar, that
it almost made me leap up and begin to
caper riotously ; so violent is its effect upon
feet and head.
Children : In the streets of Seville they dance a
winsome measure, with one hand above the
head and the other akimbo, the frock lifted
for greater ease of movement ; a disdainful
dance, with haughty shrugging gestures, and
also a seemly dance. Little girls dancing in
groups, miniature, doll-like figures of bal-
lerinas, stamp their tiny heels and imitate the
sultry and aggressive dance of the grown-up
performers.
Erotic elements : Spanish dances cover the whole
range of the erotic emotions, from amorous
dalliance to orgasm ; but always, even in the
most dignified quadrille, the erotic element
is a trifle provocative ; it is not of that type
which is displayed in the tango, but it excites,
recoils and entices, challenges, threatens and
slightly mocks. These are diabolical, ama-
tory dances ; but they never lack a metallic
mainspring of pride.
Fandango ; This is danced in a dress with a
142
FLAMENCOS
lengthy train ; to whirl round while wearing
such a train, to kick it aside gracefully, to
twirl like a top and stamp the heels all
this demands consummate skill and is a fine
sight ; for this dance spurts up miraculously
from a froth of flounces and lace petticoats.
Gipsy-girls : Most of them are from Triana ; for
dancing they wear a long smock-like dress,
which in olden times they used to lay aside ;
and what they dance is in its essentials the
cancan, the legs straddled and body bent
back as far as the ground. The music
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
144
FLAMENCOS
lashes the dancer on more and more fever-
ishly, the protruding belly whirls more and
more violently, navel and hips rotate, the
hands writhe snakily, the heels are stamped
defiantly, the body bends forward, as if it
were struggling in the hands of a ruffian,
a screech, and the gipsy-girl is sinking to
the ground as if laid low by a spasm of bliss.
It is a wild dance, boisterous and convulsive ;
in it, sex, launching an attack, creeps, thrusts
and parries ; the phallic cult of some formid-
able sect.
Gitanos : They dance, in pairs, a sexual panto-
mime of enticement and defiance, wooing
and brutality ; they dance the traditional
duet of man and woman, in which the woman
is, if I may say so, a slut, and the man a
ruffian who drags her along the ground.
But if the gipsy dances by himself, he lays
aside all pretext of pantomime ; then the
thing becomes a sheer frenzy of movement,
leapings and squattings, soaring gestures,
and rabid stamping ; it is so genuine a dance
that it expresses nothing else than liberated
fire.
Guitar : The sounds it makes are utterly different
from what we here imagine them to be ; it
rings metallically like a cutlass, it rattles
defiantly and harshly ; it does not growl,
nor does it croon, coo or rustle, but it twangs
like a bow-string, rumbles like a kettle-drum,
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
clatters like sheet-Iron ; it is a manly and
boisterous instrument, played by fellows who
look like mountain-brigands and who pluck
at the strings with curt and jerky movements
of the fingers.
Hija : I Ole ! ! hija !
Chiquita : \ Bueno ! \ bueno ! chiquita.
Jota : The jota of Arragon is both a song and a
dance ; a song with a heavy cadence, strange
and harsh, which dashes on abruptly and
then slackens, extremely Moorish, but with-
out the flourishes which distinguish the
flamenco ; each verse swerves suddenly into
a protracted and drooping lamentation. And
146
FLAMENCOS
the jota is also a very attractive dance, swift
and unfettered, with a jaunty, galloping
rhythm which surges forth from the rounded
slackening plain-song.
Muy : i Bueno, chica ! \ Otra, otra !
Ole : j Nina ! j Ea !
Palmoteo : Or hand-clapping. While one of the
group dances, the others sit around and beat
time by clapping their hands, as if unable
to hold out against the rhythmic eddy which
is poured along in the cascading of the guitars.
And they bawl. And they stamp their feet.
And the guitar-players rock themselves to and
fro on the chairs, stamp their feet and bawl.
And on top of all this the castanets.
Rondalla : This is a fat-bellied mandoline of
Arragon which produces a metallic and
melodious clatter, and harmonizes with the
tune of the iotas.
U : The U is a song of Valencia, the ecstatic
scream of a singer amid the blare of trumpets
and the feverish whirling of castanets ; never
have I heard such a fervid singing as this
long and appallingly tense yell of the Moors.
Zapatear : Or to stamp with a rhythmic gusto.
147
Bodega
PAIN, like every old and worthy country, keeps
its regional peculiarities ; there are thou-
sand and one differences between Valencia and
Asturias , Arr agon and Extremadura . Even nature
has become associated with the localized patriotism
which this involves, and produces a different sort
of wine in each province. You must know that
the wines of Castille promote valour, while the
wines from the province of Granada arouse a
grievous and frantic sorrow, and the wines of
Andalusia induce feelings of delight and cheerful-
ness ; the wines from Rioja refresh the mind, the
Catalan wines endow the tongue with adroitness,
and the wines of Valencia sink to the heart.
You must know, too, that the sherry which is
drunk on the spot where it is made, does not
resemble the sweetened sherry which we drink ;
it is light in colour, pungently flavoured with a
bitterish tartness, soft as oil, but heady all the
same, for it is a sea-coast wine. Brown Malaga
is thick and sticky, like fragrant honey, in which a
fiery sting is hidden. And then there is a goodly
wine called Manzanilla of San Lucar ; as its name
shows, it is a young and exuberant wine, worldly
and jovial ; when you have quaffed your fill of
148
BODEGA
Manzanilla, you float along buoyantly as a skiff
in a good wind.
You must know also that each province has
different sorts of fish and different sorts of cheese,
as well as different sorts of sausage and saveloy,
beans and melons, olives and grapes, sweetmeats
149
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
150
BODEGA
and other local gifts of God. That is why the
old and trustworthy authors assert that it is
instructive to travel ; and every traveller whose
aim it is to improve his mind in distant lands will
assure you how precious and essential a thing
good victuals are. The kings of Asturias are
no more, but the smoked cheese of Asturias still
survives ; the palmy days of Aranjuez are a thing
of the past, but the strawberries of Aranjuez enjoy
their historic renown to this very day. Do not
be gluttons or finicky feeders ; let your meals be a
homage to the gods of time and place. I should
like to eat caviare in Russia and English bacon in
England; but, alas, in England I was- given
caviare to eat, and English bacon in the land of
Spain. Patriots of all countries, a conspiracy is
being hatched against us ; neither international
finance nor the Fourth Internationale is such a
menace to us as the International Hotel-Keeper.
I implore you, caballeros, let us fight against his
wiles, uttering sundry sacred and ancient war-
cries, such as Chorizo, Kalbshaxen, A la lanterne,
Macaroni, Porridge, Camembert, Pereat, Man-
zanilla and many others, according to where we
are and how pugnacious we feel.
151
Carabela
IT is anchored on the Guadalquivir near that
Torre del Oro, where the Spanish ships used
to unload Peruvian gold ; and it Is said to be an
exact model, to the last plank and rope, of the
carabela Santa Maria on which Christopher
Columbus discovered America. I went to have
a look at it in the hope that, as a result, something
would occur to me on the subject of Christopher
Columbus ; I went right through it, from the
lower deck to the top ; I lay down on the bed in
the cabin of Columbus, and as a souvenir I took
a number of La Vanguardia which was lying on
the table there, apparently another relic of
Columbus ; I meddled with the falconetas or
culebrinas or whatever they call those old cannons,
during which process I nearly broke my leg with
an iron bullet, for they were loaded ; but I dis-
covered nothing except my own astonishment
at finding the famous ship so small. I doubt
whether the Port of London authority would
allow it to be used for passenger traffic as far as
Tilbury.
But up on deck I remembered that behind me
was the Ibero-American Exhibition ; and when
it was closed, its existence would be perpetuated
15*
CARABELA
by a large Ibero-American University which, so
we Sevillanos hope, will be attended by young
caballeros from Mexico and Guatemala, Argentine
and Peru and Chile. At that < moment I felt
terribly anxious to be a Spanish patriot and to
exult aloud, thus : Hombres, just consider that
yonder, on the other side of the ocean, there are
millions and millions of people who speak a
language in accordance with the dictionary of the
Madrid Academy. Now although the countries
there are as plentiful as blackberries, there is only
one nation, and if we were to set about the job
properly, there would be only one civilization,
too, i sabe ? I imagine, caballeros, what would
happen if all people who kept to the diction-
ary of the Madrid Academy were to throw
in their lot together; this would immediately
produce something which not even the League
of Nations has managed to bring about a
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
Buroamerica, an Inter-continental alliance of the
white race. Why, this would be like a new dis-
covery of America. Just fancy how we Iberians
would open the eyes of those Great Powers with
their everlasting disputes about tonnage and
calibre ! Amigos, every estranjero, who trots
into our country by way of Irtin or Portbu, only
has to glance round and he at once notices that
of old we Spaniards showed signs of greatness
and supremacy ; where, by all that's holy, has it
gone to ? In the name of Goya and Cervantes,
let us get back to it !
That and in like manner is how I would speak
to them ; for when you are standing on a vessel
which recalls the carabela of Columbus, you feel
a sort of compulsion to discover America. I did
not discover America, but in this country I dis-
covered something closer to us ; I think it is called
nationalism. What I mean is that this nation,
more than any other not counting the English
has succeeded in preserving its own peculiar mode
of life ; from the women's mantillas to the music
of Albeniz, from the household usages to the
street traders, from the caballeros to the donkeys,
it prefers its old Spanish manners to the veneer
of international civilization. This may be due to
the climate, or to the fact that the country is
almost an island ; but first and foremost it is a
question of character. Here local pride makes
every caballero hold his head high ; the Gaditano
glories in being a man of Cadiz, and the Madrileno
CARABELA
in being a man of Madrid ; the Asturian is proud
to be a man of Asturia, and the Castillan is proud
in general ; for each of these names has the renown
of an escutcheon. In consequence of which, the
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
Sevillan, I hope, will never demean himself so
far as to become a good international European ;
for he would not become even a Madrileno. One
of the deeper secrets of Spain is its provincialism,
a peculiar virtue which, in the rest of Europe, is
dying out ; a provincialism which is the joint
product of nature, history and people. Spain has
not yet ceased to be in close touch with nature, and
has still not lost sight of Its history ; that is why
It has managed to preserve itself to such an extent.
And all that the rest of us can do is to observe,
with a certain amount of wonder, how fine a
thing it is to be a nation.
156
Palmas y Naranjos
HAVING travelled through the La Mancha
region in a night as dark as a gipsy, I cannot
say whether it really contains giants or whether
they are merely wind-mills ; but on the other
hand I can enumerate to you quite a lot of things
which are to be found in the provinces of Murcia
and Valencia, to wit and particularly : yellow or
red rocks, white crags of limestone and blue hills
as a background ; on each rock, crag and hill the
ruins of a Moorish fortress or a Christian strong-
hold or at least a hermitage, a chapel or a belfry ;
the huge brown remains of Montesa, the citadel
of Jativa bristling with towers and battlements,
all kinds of fortifications, fortresses and watch-
towers ; the stronghold of Puig and the ramparts
of Nules, the ruins of Sagunto, a whole acropolis
on a rocky summit, and the four-square castle of
Benicarlo ;
brown and red wastes of rocky hill-sides, over-
grown with tufts of esparto, with hazel-bushes,
sprays of thyme, rosemary, tenkria and sage ; arid
slopes parched like pottery just removed from the
oven and still hot ; and right below them
olive gardens, grey and silvery, similar to our
willows, with their gnarled and twisted trunks
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
.58
PALMAS Y NARANJOS
which resemble mandragoras, goblins or some-
thing else remotely human ; and among the olives
a parched and stony puebla with a small church
like a stronghold, with squat houses and some
sort of large ruins above ;
a
then, groves of fig-trees, large-leaved and un-
kempt ; dense and luxuriant algarobias, which
produce pods of the carob-bean, otherwise known
as St. John's bread ; and date-palms, rows up-
on rows of palms thrusting their triumphant
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
tops aloft ; palm-groves, townships steeped in
palms, glistening faience cupolas and minarets
amid palms and banana-trees, and above this
another, stronghold of some sort or other ;
irrigated huertas, rice-fields, mulberry planta-
tions, stretches of vineyards and acres of orange-
trees, small and round with tough, glossy leaves
and oranges arraying themselves in golden tints,
and lemon-trees which are larger and more like
pear-trees ; a land flowing with milk and honey,
if ever I saw one, tierras de regadio where the
fertilizing moisture still flows through gutters and
runnels which were laid down by Roman farmers
and Moorish architects ; and above this golden
land, on the blue hills, bastions, turrets and
notched walls of Moorish strongholds ;
Valencia, with its blue and gold azulejo cupolas,
160
PALMAS Y NARANJOS
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161
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
its brown-faced people and golden air, in which
sea-air and the smell of fish is mingled with the
fragrance of oranges and syrup ;
sea, sea, sea luminous, flaming, opalescent and
crinkled, foaming at the foot of brown rocks,
licking the sandy beaches, and azure sea, sea whose
range baffles the eye ; malarial lagoons, inlets
amid the rocks, the wing-shaped sail of a fishing
boat on the horizon ;
alcornoques, groves of cork-oaks with leaves
which are almost black, leathery and coiled into
the shape of pointed paper-bags ; small pine-
groves on the salt sandy flats ; on the mountains
strongholds and hermitages ;
162
PALMAS Y NARANJOS
so the sea on the right, and on the left, moun-
tains where must I look so as to leave nothing
out ? oh, to float on the sea or to be a hermit
on yonder mountains,
to sail out on a fishing cruise, to tread grapes
or to press out oil, ha, you scarlet rocks, nowhere
are rocks so crimson,
behold, Oropesa, a township clinging to a rock,
doubtless it looked exactly the same a thousand
years ago, although I cannot tell what nation
dwelt there then ;
whenever you ride through a tunnel, it is as If
you had put a full stop and the beginning of a
new chapter followed It,
and yet you could not say at what point the
country undergoes such a change, or in what the
change consists ; suddenly it reminds you of
something else. It is no longer Africa, but some-
thing familiar to you ; It might be the Corniche
at Marseilles or the Riviera di Levante ; once
more it is Latin country, the warm and sparkling
Mediterranean basin, and when you look at the
map, you discover that It is called Cataluna.
163
Tibidabo
npIBIDABO is a hill above Barcelona ; on the
JL top there is a church, cafes and swings, and
especially a view of the sea, the town and its
surroundings ; the sea in question gleams with
a steamy haze, the town emits an uncommonly
delicate sparkle of white dwellings, and its
surroundings are tinged with a green and pink
lustre.
Or from the Font del Lie 6 terrace, there is
beauty for you, the shining town between the
warm surge of the hills and the sea, a vista as
stimulating as light wine.
Or evening on the slope of Montjuich at the
exhibition, when all the fountains, conduits and
cascades, the frontages and turrets are set agleam
with such an array of lights that you are at a loss
to describe it, and all you can do is to look at it
till your head begins to whirl.
But these fabulous items are incomplete with-
out Barcelona itself ; a rich city, as good as new,
which rather flaunts its money, its industries, its
new streets, shops and villas ; there are miles and
miles of them, left and right, and in the middle,
as if at the bottom of a pocket, the old town
manages to wedge itself in around a few ancient
164
TIBIDABO
and venerable objects, such as a cathedral, a town
hall and a Diputacion, with its close and swarm-
Ing streets, cut in two by the famous Rambla^
where the populace of Barcelona jostles 'under the
plane-trees to buy flowers, to ogle the girls and
to start revolutions. All in all, a brisk and
pleasant city, blazoning forth its prosperity, rush-
ing out to the surrounding hills, an ostentatious
and flamboyant place, like its fanciful architect
Gaudi, who so feverishly elevated his soul heaven-
ward in the unfinished nave and the pine-cone
turrets of that vast cathedral torso, Sagrada
Familia,
And the harbour, dirty and noisy like all
harbours, an enclosed zone of nocturnal resorts,
dancing halls and shows, filled at nightfall with
the clatter and the racket of all their mechanical
165
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
orchestras, blatant with coloured lights, gross
and rampant with its queer mob of stevedores,
seamen, riffraff, plump wenches, rowdies and
harbour dregs, a brothel larger than Marseilles,
a low haunt more dubious than Limehouse, a
sink of iniquity where earth and sea shed their
scum.
And the working-class suburbs, where you see
men with their clenched fists in their pockets, and
166
TIBIDABO
167
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
rabid, defiant eyes ; let me tell you, this Is very
different from the free and easy dwellers in
Triana ; take a sniff, and you will discover that
something is smouldering here. At nightfall
shadows range along towards the centre of the
town ; they wear espadrillas on their feet and red
belts round their waists ; a cigarette clings to
their lips and their caps are pulled down over
their eyes. They are only shadows, but when
you look round, they form quite a cluster. A
cluster of staring, dogged eyes.
And here, in the middle of the city, are people
who refuse to be Spaniards ; and In the moun-
tains round about, peasants who are not Spaniards.
From the heights of TIbidabo It is a brilliant and
prosperous city ; but as you get nearer and nearer
to it, you seem to hear the sound of rapid panting
between clenched teeth.
Meanwhile, Barcelona overflows with lights and
amuses itself hectically ; the theatres do not open
till midnight, at two in the morning the dancing
halls and other pleasure haunts are packed ; the
silent and sullen clusters loiter on the ramblas and
paseos, and suddenly, noisily disappear when an
equally silent and sullen posse of mounted gen-
darmes, with rifles ready in the saddle, come into
view at the next corner.
168
Sardana
BUT, Catalonians, I would rather you played
your sardana to me, that shrill and forthright
musical instrument, the sound of which combines
the bleating of a goat with the whistling of a
shawm real Mediterranean music. This is not
the straggling yell of the Moors nor the dark
passion of the guitars ; it is rural, uncouth and
cheerful like this region itself.
For here the country now resembles Provence ;
thus, it is not as rocky as the rest of Spain, but
as the Proven?al hills ; no palms grow there like
those in Murcia, but the palms that grow there
are like those on the Riviera. As you notice, the
distinction is a subtle one, and is not easy to put
169
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
into words ; it is in the air you breathe, it is in
the people and their dwellings with the green
shutters, but, above all, it just simply is.
As regards the inhabitants of this region, they
wear on their feet white woven slippers called
alpargatas, which remind you of Roman sandals ;
and here and there you come across red Phrygian
caps (they are called barretinas or something of
that sort). And many of them are blue-eyed and
brown-haired, thickset and stocky ; somehow a
touch of the north has got into everything here,
170
SARDANA
the music, the taste of the wine, the people and
the natural features. The majority of the trees
are deciduous ; the first yellow leaf of a plane-
tree which I saw was like a greeting from home.
The people do not live in patios as they do yonder,
but in the streets ; children and dogs and mothers,
171
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
*
topers and newspaper-readers, mules and cats,
they all live on the doorstep and 'on the pavement ;
perhaps that Is why in this country it is so easy
for a mob to form and street-fights to start.
But if I must say what surprised me most, it
was the gendarmes in front of the royal castle ;
for they wear white Catalan slippers on their feet
and a top-hat on their heads. You see, a top-
hat, slippers, and a rifle with fixed bayonet, is a
peculiar and unusual combination ; but, after all,
it graphically represents the character of the
Catalan country, a rural and commercial area
among the other kingdoms of Spain.
172
Pelota
PELOTA Is a Basque game with a hard ball
made of dogskin. From a distance it looks
as if a shindy had just started and that the noise
of shooting was being added to the wild uproar ;
but when you get nearer, you discover that the
uproar is not caused by the players or even by
the onlookers but by the betting-touts, who rush
about in front of the crowd and take bets on Blue
or Red, these being the distinctive colours of the
teams. From a dramatic point of view these
betting-touts are the most interesting feature of
the show ; for they yell like monkeys, leap
about, wave their arms and indicate the bets on
their outstretched fingers, the bets and winnings
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
*74
PELOTA
being flung to and fro between touts and onlookers
In hollow pellets, which whizz past your nose like
nuts shaken from a tree where a gang of apes
are squatting.
While this passionate betting-game is develop-
ing, the pelota in the narrow sense of the word
is being played lower down in front of the crowd.
On each side there are two players with a sort
of long wicker pod or trough, fastened to the
right hand by means of a leather glove. Elola
catches the flying ball in this pod, and wallop,
he swipes it against the high wall which is known
as the fronton. The ball bounces off with a crash,
and whizzes back with the momentum of a pro-
jectile ; bang, now Gabriel has got it in his pod,
and shoots it against the wall. Houp-la, now
Ugalde has collared it from the air into his pod,
whirls the racket round, and flings the ball at
the fronton like a bomb. And bang, now Teodoro
has got it in his trough and whacks it against the
wall with a thud ; now it is Elola's turn again
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
to catch It as it bounces off. That Is what It
looks like In terms of a slow-motion film ; but
in reality you see four white figures, each leaping
in his line, and smack bang, smack bang, smack
bang, the ball flies above them and remains
almost invisible ; if the player misses it, If the
ball bounces on the ground twice, or if some other
mysterious slip is made, that ends the round and
the other team scores one point ; the touts begin
to wave their arms and with a terrific yell announce
fresh bets. And so it goes on until sixty points
or thereabouts have been scored. Then a fresh
set of Rojos and Azules arrive, and they begin
all over again, while the crowd is re-shuffled,
as if they were so many roulette-players.
As you see, It has all the attributes of a mono-
tonous game, especially when we use such ele-
176
PELOTA
mentary and common phrases as " catching the
ball ?5 ; but in reality the process is not one of
catching, but involves rather a species of magic.
The pod, known as la cesta, is no more than a
hand's breadth across, and the ball flies at about
the same speed as a meteor ; apparently on a
recent occasion it bounced off the wall and flew
among the onlookers, whereupon all four players
took to their heels, as they felt sure that the ball
must have killed someone in the crowd. So to
catch a ball like that is very much like catching
in a spoon a bullet from a rifle ; and the pelota-
177
M
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
players catch every ball wherever It may hurtle,
with the same dead certainty as that with which
a swift catches flies. They just stretch out their
arms, and they've got It. They just take a leap,
and they've got it. Compared to pelota, tennis
is like chasing flies with a fly-clapper. And on
top of all that, they perform their tricks, the leaps
and the somersaults, without any display or
exertion 5 very much like a bird hunting gnats.
There's a bang, the ball crashes against the wall,
and the thing's done ; not a sign of the brawny
strength with which it must have been hurled.
That's the sort of game it is, queer and mono-
tonous.
This game is played only by the Basques and
the men from the hills of Navarre ; the Basques,
who have introduced to the world the beret
(they call It botna) ; the Basques, who, as Professor
Meillet informed me, are the original Inhabitants
of the whole Mediterranean basin, and akin to
certain tribes of the Caucasus. Their language
is so complex that it has not yet been fully investi-
gated ; and they make their music with a clarinet
178
PELOTA
reed-pipe, called duhaina, accompanied by a
small drum. They are one of the tiniest nations
in Europe, perhaps they are what is left of the
vanished people of Atlantis. It would be a
crime if this dauntless remnant also vanished*
Montserrat
SEEN from a distance, it is a sturdy, impressive
mountain which, from the waist upwards,
overtops the other hills of Catalonia ; but the
nearer you get to it, the more are you amazed,
and you shake your head, till at last all you can
do is to mutter : " Well, I'm hanged ! " and
" I've never seen anything like that before."
Which only goes to confirm the old experience
that the things of this world are more remarkable
at close quarters than from afar.
For, you see, what from Barcelona looks like a
compact range turns out at close quarters to be a
mountain perched on columns ; in fact, it looks
more like a specimen of ecclesiastical architecture
than a mountain. Below, there is a plinth of red
rock, from which rocky pillars tower upwards ; on
top of them there is something resembling a gallery
which supports a fresh row of huge columns ; and
above them a third storey of this immense colon-
nade hoists itself upwards to a height of more
than six thousand feet. Well, I'm hanged ; I
must say, I've never seen anything like that
before. The higher the fine spiral path uncoils,
the more it makes you hold your breath ; below,
the steep precipice of Llobregat and above your
180
MONTSERRAT
head the steep towers of Montserrat ; and between
the two, as If it were on a projecting balcony,
hangs a holy monastery and a cathedral and a
garage for several hundred cars, motor-buses and
charabancs, together with a hostel where you can
lodge with the Benedictine monks in that monu-
mental and bristling hermitage ; and in this
monastery there is a library such as perhaps no
other monastery contains, which ranges from old
folios in wooden and pigskin bindings, to a whole
shelf of books about cubism.
But there is still the peak of the mountain,
181
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
Sant Jeroni ; you are taken there by an absolutely
vertical funicular railway, which makes you think
of a sardine-tin being hauled along a rope to
the top of a church-steeple ; but you take your
seat in this tin, and try to look alert and adven-
turous, as if you were not frightened out of your
wits at the possibility of being hurled to kingdom
come. And when you get to the top and pull
yourself together, you do not know what you ought
to look at first ; so I will draw up a list of things
for you :
1. The vegetation which, seen from below,
looks like tufts of hair under the armpits of those
huge upraised limbs, but at close quarters It
proves to be a delightful crop of evergreen bar-
berries and holly, box-tree and spindle-tree, rock-
rose, myrtle and laurel and Mediterranean
heather ; I'll be hanged if I've ever seen such
a natural park as here on the mountain-top and
among the crevices in these expanses of hard
rubble which look as if they were moulded from
flinty concrete.
2. The towers and columns of the rocks of
Montserrat, the naked, awe-inspiring steeps of
the Evil Valley, which is supposed to have split
apart on the day of Christ's crucifixion. There
are a number of scientific theories as to what
these rocks resemble ; according to some, they
are like sentries, according to others, a procession
of monks in cowls, or flutes, or roots of extracted
teeth. I myself call heaven to witness that they
182
MONTSERRAT
resemble upraised fingers clutched together as In
prayer ; and so Montserrat prays with a thousand
fingers, avows with lifted forefingers, blesses the
pilgrims and makes a sign. My own belief Is
that it was created and upraised above all other
183
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
184
MONTSERRAT "
mountains for this special purpose,- and my
belief is further, that it is now out of place, 'but
I thought of this while sitting on the summit
of Sant Jeroni, which forms the highest peak and,
at the same time, the centre of this vast and quaint
natural cathedral.
3. And then there is the surrounding country,
earth rippling, farther than the eye can reach, in
green and pink heights : Cataluna, Navarra,
Arragon ; the Pyrenees with sparkling glaciers ;
white townships at the foot of the mountains ;
queer, oval hills, so arranged as to look like
ruffled tresses through which a huge comb has
been passed. Or rather, they look as if they
were still marked by the furrowed imprint of
the fingers which created this land. From the
summit of Montserrat you see the imprint of the
divine thumbs which kneaded this warm, russet
region with a special creative zest.
Having beheld all this and marvelled thereat,
the pilgrim set out on his homeward journey.
185
Vuelta
THE homeward journey. I have to travel
across four countries yet, but whatever I see
now, absent-mindedly I let slip between my
fingers like the beads of a rosary ; for now it is
only the way back. A man who is returning
home, squeezes himself into a corner of the
railway-carriage, and half-closes his eyes ; enough,
186
VUELTA
enough of this passlng-by and withdrawing ;
enough of all these places which slip away almost
as soon as they have beckoned. All he wants
now is to be home again, like a post fixed into
the ground ; to see around him, morning and
evening, the same familiar things. Yes, but the
world is such a large place !
Just look at the fellow and see what a fool he
is ! There he sits in the corner like a bundle of
misery, and he is annoyed because he did not
see more of it. He hasn't seen Salamanca or
Santiago ; he hasn't encountered the king of the
gipsies, nor heard the sound of the Basque
txistularis. He ought to see all and stretch out
187
LETTERS ^PROM SPAIN
his hand towards everything, just as he patted
that donkey at Toledo or stroked the trunk of the
palm in the garden of the Alcazar. He ought at
least to touch everything with his fingers. To
pass the palm of his hand across the whole world.
What a delight It is, dear reader, to see or to
handle something which, till then, was unfamiliar
i
i
to you. Each divergency in things and people
widens the bounds of life,
With gratitude and joy you have gleaned every-
thing that differed from what you were accus-
tomed to ; and whatever other pilgrims you saw,
were willing to walk themselves off their feet to
make sure of not missing anything special and
188
VURLTA
picturesque and different from what they could
see elsewhere ; for in us all there Is a love for the
fullness and teeming of life. Now this fullness
of life is brought about by nations ; of course,
by history and environment as well, but the two
are merged in nations. So if it ever occurred to
J3-!
us to let the affairs of this world be controlled by
a love of life, we should have to say something
of this sort (in all the languages of the world) :
Caballeros, it is true of course, that people are
people, all the world over, but what caused us
travellers such a pleasant surprise was not so much
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
190
VUELTA
the discovery that, for instance, the Sevillans are
people, as the discovery that the Sevillans are
Sevillans. We were delighted to find that the,
Spaniards really are Spaniards ; the more Spanish
they were, the more we liked them' and the more
highly we thought of them. Bear in mind that
we should think just as highly of the Chinese for
the exciting reason that they are Chinese, of the
Portuguese because they are Portuguese, and we
do not understand a word they say. And so on.
There are people who love the whole world as
long as it is willing to have asphalt high-roads or
to believe in one God or to close the bodegas and
taverns. There are people who could love the
world if only it would assume just their own single
civilized aspect. But as we have not yet made
much progress with love, let us try another way.
It is far more delightful to be fond of the world
because it has thousands of aspects and is different
everywhere, and then to announce : Friends, as
we are so glad to see each other, let us make a
League of Nations ; but hang it, they must be
Nations with all the proper trimmings, each one
with different hair and a different language, well,
its own customs and culture, and if need be, with
all right, with its own God, too ; for every diver-
gence deserves to be cherished, simply because it
widens the bounds of life. Let us be united by
everything that divides us !
And here, the man on his way home, lets his
eyes nestle against the vine-clad hills of France,
191
LETTERS FROM SPAIN
lets them fondle the hop-fields of Germany, and
with feverish delight looks forward to seeing the
tilled land and the apple-orchards beyond the last
frontier.
192
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